[Coral-List] Invitation to contribute to the Encyclopedia of Earth

John Bruno jbruno at unc.edu
Mon Jan 21 09:11:32 EST 2008


Hello Coral Listers,

I am writing to invite you to contribute to the coral reef collection  
in the Encyclopedia of Earth (http://www.eoearth.org/).  EoE is a new  
electronic reference about the Earth, its natural environments, and  
their interaction with society-sort of Wikipedia for the  
environment.  The EoE is a free, fully searchable collection of  
articles written by experts who collaborate and review each other's  
work. The articles are written in non-technical language and will be  
useful to students, educators, scholars, and professionals, as well  
as to the general public.  The EoE is just over a year old and  
already gets over 10,000 unique visits each day.  Its use, content,  
and visibility are growing exponentially.  For more info about the  
EoE, go to:  http://www.eoearth.org/eoe/about

There has been a lot of chatter on the coral list about educating the  
public about reef ecosystems and the threats they face. I think this  
is a great way to do so.  The advantages are that we can reach a very  
large number of people around the world, the entries can be updated  
easily and regularly to keep up with scientific advances, reef- 
related entries are essentially a collaborative project that all of  
us can contribute to (so the burden does not fall on just one person  
or group) and the entire endeavor is supported by the excellent EoE  
staff and the professional-looking interface.

Associated with the EoE is the Earth Portal where various  
environmental and economic issues are covered in greater detail. This  
week, coincident with the official launching of the Year of The Reef,  
the EP is featuring Coral Reefs and Climate Change: http:// 
www.earthportal.org/

Contributions can range from short entries of ~ 250 words to longer  
in depth articles of 5,000 words.  If you are interested in  
contributing, go here:  http://www.eoearth.org/eoe/contribute  and  
contact me directly about possible topics (I can let you know of  
someone else is already writing a given entry).  You can also edit  
and add to existing entries.  For example, the zooxanthellae entry  
(http://www.eoearth.org/article/Zooxanthellae) needs an image.

There are now over 100 coral reef related entries in EoE but we are  
missing even very basic topics like coral bleaching.  Some examples  
of what we have posted so far include:

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Coral_reef
http://www.eoearth.org/article/ 
Coral_degradation_through_destructive_fishing_practices
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Corals_as_endangered_species
http://www.earthportal.org/?p=597

Our colleagues that have already contributed or agreed to write an  
entry include Joanie Kleypas, Peter Edmunds, Bill Precht, Ove Hoegh- 
Guldberg, and Andrew Baker.

We can organize all the coral content as a collection (http:// 
www.eoearth.org/article/Coral_reefs_%28collection%29) or ebook  
(http://www.eoearth.org/article/EBooks) like Bob Constanza is doing  
for Ecological Economics (http://www.eoearth.org/article/ 
An_Introduction_to_Ecological_Economics_%28e-book%29).  Some  
materials will come from organizations like the ISRS which just  
agreed to become an official content provider.  You can basically  
post your content as is in the EoE, allowing a much greater number  
and range of users to access it.  For example, we are in the process  
of posting the ISRS position papers and the EoE also includes lots of  
useful documents like the IPCC reports.

Please contact Laura De Angelo at the EoE (laura.de.angelo at gmail.com)  
or me if you and/or your organization are interested in contributing  
and want more info on possible topics, how to do so, style and  
format, etc.


Sincerely,

John

John Bruno, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Marine Science
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-330
jbruno at unc.edu
www.brunolab.net





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