[Coral-List] Biodiversity Resource Locater

[Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems (CReefs)]

Aloha Coral Listers,

The Census of Marine Life (CoML), Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems project
(CReefs), has a vision to develop and implement a web-based resource locater
for biodiversity information focusing on the lesser studied coral reef
organisms, such as non-coral marine invertebrates, algae, and microbes. The
objective of the resource locator is to provide you, the scientific
community, with a site that will enable you to search for coral reef
biodiversity information on an organism or taxonomic group of interest in
select regions around the world.  Initially the search engine will focus on
current researchers, research institutions, and databases with information
on specific taxonomic groups.  For example, if you were interested in
research being conducted in Hawai'i on urchins from the genus, *Echinothrix*,
you would select Hawai'i as your region of interest on the website, type in
*Echinothrix* as your target organism and receive an output containing a
list of the current researchers, affiliated institutions supporting this
research, and databases with information on *Echinothrix* in the Hawaiian
Archipelago.  Ultimately we would like to incorporate other resources into
the locator such as; journal articles, past experts (to help find older
bibliographies that are not currently listed in on-line databases), museums
that contain specimens of specific taxa and links to their specimen
databases if they exist, libraries containing old references and
bibliographies of such references, websites on specific taxa (from
accredited institutions, university systems or museums), and taxonomic keys.

We are writing to you to solicit your opinion regarding this vision. Is this
something that would be worthwhile? Does anyone know if such a resource
already exists and if so, how is it similar to or different from our vision?
Feedback received regarding this endeavor will help us to mold and hopefully
create a useful product for all of you.  Please e-mail us at
CReefs.hawaii at gmail.com with your comments. We will be following-up in the
near future to request those of you focusing on non-coral marine
invertebrates, algae, and microbes to e-mail us your expertise and
affiliated institutions so that we can start compiling the database.



Mahalo Nui Loa,

Amy Hall
Megan Moews
Molly Timmers

CReefs.hawaii at gmail.com

http://www.creefs.org/
http://www.coml.org/