Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: Scientists: ‘time is ripe’ to use big data for planet-sized plant questions
January 14, 2019
A group of Florida Museum of Natural History scientists has issued a “call to action” to use “big data” to tackle longstanding questions about plant diversity and evolution and forecast how plant life will fare as climate change, invasion by nonnative species, and habitat fragmentation continue.
In a
commentary published December 31 in
Nature Plants, the scientists urged increased use of the massive, open-access data resources that are currently available, such as those associated with herbaria and government agencies, and with citizen science initiatives such as
iNaturalist and
CalFlora. They also called for identifying and filling remaining gaps in these databases.
The scientists further noted that new technologies such as high capacity computers, remote sensors and drones now allow scientists to monitor plants and animals and transmit large quantities of data in real time.
Why is it so vital to track these regional and global changes in plant species and habitat?
“We can’t survive without plants,” said co-lead author Ryan Folk. “A lot of groups evolved in the shadow of flowering plants. As these plants spread and diversified, so did ants, beetles, ferns and other organisms. They are the base layer to the diversity of life we see on the planet today.”
In addition to using and expanding plant data resources, the authors hope the scientific community will address one of the toughest remaining obstacles to using biological big data: getting databases to work smoothly with each other.
Read an
article about the scientists’ big data commentary
