Map of Life [Mapa da vida] lançado

terça-feira, maio 22, 2012

Welcome to the Map of Life first demonstration release! 

The current release allows you to explore globally the geographic distributions for any terrestrial vertebrate species (as well as North American freshwater fish). Specifically you are able to:

Display expert range maps, point occurrence records, records from study areas such as reserves and larger regions. These are shown as layers on maps, and a layer control widget allows you to adjust ordering, visibility, etc .
Retrieve a list of species for the vicinity of any location worldwide using the species list tool. Simply set search radius and group of interest, and right click (control-click on Macs) your mouse button on a point of the map.

This is a first demo public release, so please let us know if there are any issues or problems. The demo will work on all current browsers but we cannot guarantee backwards compatibility. Two short videos demonstrate
taxonomic searches and the species list tool.  

The larger vision and many of the next steps for this project are outlined in this 2012 Trends in Ecology and Evolution
paper. In near-future releases, we plan to greatly increase and enhance data coverage and functionality. We will soon add more datasets for vertebrates and extend coverage to plants and invertebrates. You will be able to:

Filter data based on characteristics such as seasonality, or date of observation

Flag and edit distribution data and provide feedback about those edits

Upload your own datasets, access them through their own workbench and publish them to the community

Intersect distribution data products with environmental data such as land cover and climate

Download redistributable products

Retrieve more thoroughly annotated species lists

Calculate, display and download gridded summary patterns of e.g. species richness, endemism, etc.

Calculate different measures of species global global range size

The mid to long term goal is a modeling framework including environmental data to produce more refined, quantitative estimates of of current-day and projected future species distributions. 

We appreciate your feedback on all aspects of Map of Life, especially how we can improve the experience of using the application, and the highest valued next steps based on your needs. Please feel free to click the “Feedback” tab in the application and let us know your thoughts.   

Your
Map of Life team

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Source/Fonte: Map of Life