Sara A. Lourie

Redpath Museum, McGill University

859 Sherbrooke St West
Montreal, H3A 2K6
CANADA

Biodiversity Informatics

With the recent explosion in computing technology, accessibility and database capabilities there has been a concurrent proliferation of online biodiversity databases. Although these provide great potential for making available a wealth of knowledge about the world’s species, how these databases are linked, maintained, updated and verified will ultimately determine the utility of these resources. In January 2007 I co-organised a one-day symposium at the Redpath Museum to explore some of these topics – ‘Saving Biodiversity: Channelling Data in Policy’ and I am working on a review of biodiversity databases and their potential contributions to conservation.

I am involved in two main database projects: HerpNET and HippocampusInfo. For both of these I am georeferencing (assigning latitude and longitude and associated errors) specimen collection data increasing its utility for geospatial research. I am also assisting in making the Redpath Museum collections databases accessible online, am a collaborator for Hippocampus on Fishbase, have contributed seahorse tissue to Guelph University’s Barcode of Life (BOLD) project, and am a member of the Biodiversity Standards Organisation (TDWG).  

Ongoing research:

• Review of biodiversity databases, their inter-relationships, and contributions to conservation (with Dr Yan Wong, UK and Rebecca Ng, USA)
• Development of a marine georeferencing protocol along the lines of Chapman & Wiecoreck (2006)

Seahorses