Ecoinformatics, or ecological informatics, is the
science of information in
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...
and
environmental science
Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical ...
. It integrates environmental and information sciences to define entities and natural processes with language common to both humans and computers. However, this is a rapidly developing area in ecology and there are alternative perspectives on what constitutes ecoinformatics.
A few definitions have been circulating, mostly centered on the creation of tools to access and analyze natural system data. However, the scope and aims of ecoinformatics are certainly broader than the development of
metadata standards to be used in documenting datasets. Ecoinformatics aims to facilitate environmental research and management by developing ways to access, integrate
database
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...
s of environmental information, and develop new algorithms enabling different environmental datasets to be combined to test ecological hypotheses. Ecoinformatics is related to the concept of
ecosystem service
Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. ...
s.
Ecoinformatics characterize the
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and compu ...
of natural system knowledge. For this reason, much of today's ecoinformatics research relates to the branch of
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...
known as
knowledge representation
Knowledge representation and reasoning (KRR, KR&R, KR²) is the field of artificial intelligence (AI) dedicated to representing information about the world in a form that a computer system can use to solve complex tasks such as diagnosing a medic ...
, and active ecoinformatics projects are developing links to activities such as the
Semantic Web.
Current initiatives to effectively manage, share, and reuse ecological data are indicative of the increasing importance of fields like ecoinformatics to develop the foundations for effectively managing ecological information. Examples of these initiatives are
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
Datanet
DataNet, or Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partner was a research program of the U.S. National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure. The office announced a request for proposals with this title on September 2 ...
projects,
DataONE
DataONE is a network of interoperable data repositories facilitating data sharing, data discovery, and open science. Originally supported by $21.2 million in funding from the US National Science Foundation as one of the initial DataNet programs ...
, Data Conservancy, and
Artificial Intelligence for Environment & Sustainability.
References
External links
ecoinformatics.org Online Resource for Managing Ecological Data and Information
Ecoinformatics Collaboratory Research links and public wiki for discussion.
Ecoinformatics Education Ecosystem Informatics at Oregon State University
industrial Environmental Informatics Industrial Environmental Informatics at HTW-Berlin, University of Applied Sciences
International Society for Ecological InformaticsCanadian Facility for Ecoinformatics Research
Ecoinformatics at the University of Ottawa, Canada
Ecoinformatics program at the National Center for Ecological Analysis & SynthesisEcological Informatics: An International Journal on Computational Ecology and Ecological Data ScienceEcological DataDataONEData Conservancy
EcoInformatics Summer Institute, an NSF-funded REU site (Research Experience for Undergraduates)
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Ecology
Information science