Encyclopedia of Life launched

A new online encyclopaedia launched today aims to catalogue every one of our planet’s 1.8 million species.

The first 30,000 pages of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) were unveiled today in California. The reference work is intended for use by everyone, from scientists and academics to lay readers and schoolchildren.

The vast online canon is designed to enhance our understanding of the world’s diminishing biodiversity, especially at a time when the planet is said to be in the midst of a sixth mass extinction.

The creators of the enormous database say it could have an impact on human knowledge comparable to that of the microscope, which was invented in the 1600s.

All six kingdoms of life, including viruses (which many researchers do not consider to be living organisms), are all included in the encyclopaedia.

Its creators hope to have all 1.8 million entries complete by 2017.

"If someone were to sit down and start writing, from scratch, an encyclopaedia of life, it would take them about 100 years to complete. But we think we'll be able to do it in one-tenth of that time," said Dr Jim Edwards, executive director of the EOL.

Information for the encyclopedia has been gathered from a number of existing online databases, such as AmphibiaWeb and Fishbase.

Dr Edwards said that the authors of the immense encyclopaedia were able to pool information in a similar way to how Google News works.

The project began in the spring of 2007, although the idea for a database of every species has been around for some time.

The encyclopaedia has placeholder pages for one million species, of which 30,000 have been populated with detailed information.

www.eol.org
www.amphibiaweb.org
www.fishbase.org

Stumble It!