Cyberdiversity: Improving the Informatic Value of Diverse Tropical Arthropod Inventories

摘要: In an era of biodiversity crisis, arthropods have great potential to inform conservation assessment and test hypotheses about community assembly. This is because their relatively narrow geographic distributions high diversity offer high-resolution data on landscape-scale patterns biodiversity. However, a major impediment the more widespread application arthropod range scientific policy questions poor state modern taxonomy, especially in tropics. Inventories spiders other megadiverse from tropical forests are dominated by undescribed species. Such studies typically organize using morphospecies codes, which make it difficult for independent inventories be compared combined. To combat this shortcoming, we cyberdiversity, online community-based approach reconciling results inventory where current taxonomic knowledge incomplete. Participating scientists can upload images DNA barcode sequences dedicated databases submit occurrence links web site (www.digitalSpiders.org). Taxonomic determinations shared with crowdsourcing comments feature, researchers discover specimens interest available loan request aliquots genomic extract. demonstrate value cyberdiversity framework, reconcile three rapid structured conducted Vietnam (Doi Inthanon, Thailand) image libraries. Species richness completeness were assessed non-parametric estimators. Community similarity was evaluated novel index based Jaccard replacing observed estimated values correct unobserved We use distance-decay framework rudimentary model changes composition that will become increasingly informative as additional participate. With broader adoption approach, networks information-sharing taxonomists efficiently effectively address impediments while elucidating landscape scale