The Role of Information Science in Gathering Biodiversity and Neuroscience Data

sible to know fairly precisely where the specimens came from, their ecological setting and other relevant information. More typical are notes like those of mid-19th century explorer Charles Wright, many of whose specimens, distributed to museums in the eastern United States and Europe, are accompanied only by notes giving the month and year he collected and the location as " western Texas. " Collecting practices like these continued well into the 20th century, persisting longest in tropical areas. In well-explored areas, collectors were able to give precise locations, but in tropical areas they may only have known the river they were along and how many hours of paddling it took to get there from a distant village. Ecological information with the specimens tended to be idiosyncratic, with some scientists providing good descriptions of vegetation , soil and other relevant conditions, whereas others provided little or no data. Beginning in the 19th century, the most significant change was the elimination of the amateur collector. Instead, predominant practice throughout the 20th century has been for professional scientists to serve both as field collectors and museum experts. Museums worldwide now hold an estimated two to three billion biodiversity specimens, about 75% in the industrialized countries, and the number continues to grow (www.gbif.org/GBIF_org/facility/BIrepfin.pdf). There are standard practices for treating and preserving new specimens. Plants generally are flattened, dried and glued to reinforcing archival paper. Vertebrate animals may be preserved whole in alcohol or represented only by their skins, bones or shells. Invertebrates like insects are pinned, preserved in alcohol or mounted on microscope slides. In all cases specimens are accompanied by a label A s with the rest of science, biodiversity and neu-roscience are becoming increasingly technological and data-rich. At the same time biodiversity studies retain many traditional tools and materials, while in neuroscience new tools are frequently developed. Information science can help both fields develop tools that exploit modern technologies to increase data-gathering efficiency, to improve quality control and, where necessary, to integrate historical and modern methods and materials. We will present overviews of biodiversity and neuroscience separately and conclude by summarizing how information science can help both fields address similar issues. Biodiversity A valuable perspective on biodiversity studies can be gained from considering the Lewis and Clark Expedition, whose bicentennial the United States will celebrate in 2004. Like explorers before and after them, they and their Corps of Discovery were charged not …