[SEEK-Taxon] Fwd: inquiry to participate in the SEEK project [Kate Jones' first reply]

[franz@nceas.ucsb.edu]

Hi all:

   Here's Kate Jones' original response to our pitch for collaboration. The
Attachment is there too!

Nico

----- Forwarded message from Kate Jones <kj2107 at columbia.edu> -----
    Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2005 15:14:34 -0500
 Subject: Re: inquiry to participate in the SEEK project
      To: "Nico M. Franz" <franz at nceas.ucsb.edu>

Hi Nico (cc James)
Great to hear from you and what a wonderful proposal, I am totally
interested. I am actually working on a similar climate envelope modelling
thing but with mammal species range maps -so not using specimen museum data
but shape files in GIS of range distributions. My collaborators and I have
range maps for all the worlds mammals.
Anyway the taxonomic problem is an enormous one and I am really pleased to
see a project proposing to figure the problems out. I have been
collaborating with DeeAnn Reeder and Don Wilson's new version of the Mammal
taxonomy, which I believe is nearly finished. Nancy Simmons who did the bat
section now recognizes 200 more species from the last edition, so the
problem of changing taxonomy is very real, and one which I rant about to
conservation biologists endlessly.
Your project proposal mentions an automated resolution service to match up
names to a recognized taxonomy. I actually have something you could use
already for all the mammals. Basically I got the original files from Wilson
and Reeder for their taxonomy and have made an authority file that matches
on four bits of information for a taxon 1. genus name, 2. species name, 3.
authority, and 4. subspecies name and then matches to the currently
recognized name in Wilson and Reeder 1993. You could easily do this for the
new version when completed. You could also get an uncertainty score for
species name matches if some of the information is missing (e.g. authority
is missing, or subspecies is missing).
Anyway the two parts of the project both look very interesting and I think
that I could help you. It would be good to match this project up with the
taxonomists and other biodiversity scientists that I am linked into who are
also trying to figure this stuff out.
So yes I would love to be involved -what do you want me to do and when? I
am at Columbia until Sept 2005 and then taking up a perm position at the
Institute of Zoology in London from then. How long are you at NCEAS? It is
such a great place, Richard Stevens and Kate Lyons are good friends of mine.
Best wishes
Kate

At 13:57 02/02/2005, you wrote:
>Dear Dr. Jones:
>
>    My purpose is to inquire whether you would be interested in
> participating in an ongoing research project. Jim Beach suggested I call
> you directly, but for the moment I prefer e-mail to give me some time to
> lay out my thoughts and also for you to consider a phone call later on.
>
>    I'm involved in the SEEK project ( http://seek.ecoinformatics.org/), a
> highly collaborative NSF-funded initiative to develop a new generation of
> tools for large-scale/long-term ecological analyses. We are about 35-40
> people total; many of them are computer scientists.
>
>    One of our main use cases to show SEEK's utility at the end of the
> five-year funding period involves niche modeling of New World mammals. At
> this point we're still mostly building the infrastructure necessary to do
> these kinds of analyses.
>
>    I personally was trained as an insect systematist. SEEK has a subgroup
> "Taxon" of about 10 members who are specifically interested in building a
> database and infrastructure to store and retrieve multiple "taxonomic
> concepts" that may be associated with the names ecologists might use e.g.
> when collecting data on bats over many decades and in many countries. In
> a sense we regard the dynamics of taxonomy in space and time as just
> another data integration problem that these large-scale analyses face. We
> see our work as having wide-ranging implications for systematics and
> biodiversity research in general.
>
>    In order to meet our objective we will need expert guidance and
> participation from a mammal specialist. We have selected bats and
> possibly mice as potential targets for our demonstrations. We felt that
> your interests and considerable qualifications are an excellent match.
>
>    I have attached a document that describes the New World mammal use
> case and your potential contributions in more detail. We realize that you
> are a busy scientist, but are on the other hand convinced that our
> research is very timely and relevant. I hope to have given you enough
> information to stir your interests and consider an informal follow-up
> phone call. Thank you for taking the time to work through this document.
>
>With best wishes,
>
>Nico
>
>Nico M. Franz, Ph.D.
>National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis
>735 State Street, Suite 300
>Santa Barbara, CA 93101
>
>Phone: (805) 966-1677; Fax: (805) 892-2510; E-mail: franz at nceas.ucsb.edu
>Website: http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~franz/

_______________________________________________

Dr. Kate Jones, Earth Institute Fellow
Earth Institute, Center for Environmental Research and Conservation
Columbia University,1200 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 5556, New York, NY 10027, USA
Phone +1 (212) 854 8150; Fax +1 (212) 854 8188,
Web:http://www.columbia.edu/~kj2107 
----- End forwarded message -----




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