Encyclopedia of Life Evolves

To call it an ambitious task seems woefully inadequate.

It is a drive, launched in 2007, to build an online encyclopedia of scientific description of plant and animal life. It is The Encyclopedia of Life. Last year there were 30,000 entries; today the Encyclopedia of Life contains 170,000 entries, about one tenth of the way toward their goal of a complete catalog of 1.8 million entries — one for each of the known plant and animal species on earth — which they hope to reach within a decade.

While the mammoth undertaking is designed to be of benefit to the scientific community in multiple ways, the project is also intended to be of value to all of us:

"The Encyclopedia of Life is being developed to serve as a comprehensive, global resource for anyone interested in Earth’s species. EOL offerings are developed and used by scientists, teachers, students, media, environmental managers, families, artists and any other interested parties."

The EOL will also continue to develop and evolve with the input not just from experts in biological science, but also from any who wish to contribute an image, a sighting report, or a description.

Brought to form in large part from the guidance and energy of Harvard naturalist E.O. Wilson, the EOL reflects Wilson's abiding conviction of the fundamental importance of the natural world, and knowledge of it, in determining the quality of our own existence.

In speaking with New Scientist, Wilson offers an example of something simultaneously important and poorly understood:

"People see nature as trees, plants and vertebrates. Yet the world is run by little creatures most people have not heard of; 99 percent of Earth's organisms are extremely small. For example, some of the most abundant and crucial land animals are the tiny oribatid mites, which are the size of a pinhead and look like a cross between a turtle and a spider. They are a linchpin organism of the environment, but 20 years ago when I set out to identify them no one had heard of them."

Wilson and his colleagues are hopeful that an eager base of interested parties will remain engaged and patient as the project continues to come into form:

"People would like the Encyclopedia to exist today, but it will take three to five years before the site is likely to fulfill expectations ... The excitement for the project is incredible. We need to foster that enthusiasm by building a valuable, user-friendly tool for all audiences that is regularly updated with current information. We know expectations are high, and it is our responsibility to fulfill those expectations."

Photo courtesy of Jim Harrison, via Wikimedia Commons