Dear EOL Community Members,

Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) seeks to make trusted information about biodiversity available to people from all walks of life. Please learn more at eol.org. 

EOL Links Up With a Clownfish 

Joshua Drew, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the EOL Biodiversity Synthesis Center, along with Dr. Gerry Allen (Western Australian Museum) and Douglas Fenner (Department of Marine Resources, American Samoa) recently described a new species of clown fish, Amphiprion pacificus.  This new species is limited to the southwestern Pacific including the islands of Fiji, Tonga, Samoa and Wallis, an area that is recognized for its unique marine ecosystem.

In addition to expanding knowledge of coral reef fishes, this study was one of the first to include an EOL species page link in the formal description.  By linking the EOL species page to the formal description, we can ensure that any subsequent information about A. pacificus will be curated and presented on a single site. In this way, the original species description will remain up to date, facilitating research in the future. 

(Image courtesy of Douglas Fenner)

Libraries are Going Global

To effectively manage and preserve digital literature content for the future the  Biodiversity Heritage Library has partnered with  projects in China, Europe, Brazil, Australia and Egypt over the last year.  These partner nodes will redundantly host digital copies of the literature the BHL has scanned as well as share biodiversity literature they have digitized. 

Biodiversity Challenge Badge: 

Youth Celebrating the International Year of Biodiversity

The EOL Learning + Education Team has contributed EOL-related activities and information to a Biodiversity Challenge Badge initiative that is jointly produced with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Associatio n of Girl Guides and Girls Scouts, through the Youth and United Nations Global Alliance and The Green Wave.  This education initiative provides children and young people with useful biodiversity information, and to help them participate in protecting, preserving and improving biodiversity in their communities. 

(Left to right, images courtesy of Biopix, Wikimedia Commons, Malcolm Storey/Bioimages, and Flickr user djmapleferryman)

EOL Calendar

• EOL Celebrates IYB: EOL continues to celebrate 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) and looks forward to the results from the upcoming meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan. 

• EOL at TDGW 2010: At the end of September, numerous EOL staffers and partners attended TDWG 2010 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. 

• EOL at CONABIO: In November, our colleagues at CONABIO are hosting the EOL Steering Committee meeting in Mexico City.  Among other things, the group will be discussing a new, global governance model to encourage more international participation.

• EOL at the Wolfram Data Summit: Last month, members of the EOL team attended the Wolfram Data Summit in Washington, DC, to share insights on our work with data repositories and to discuss challenges and opportunities facing the worldwide data community.

• From the Bioinformatics Group: The EOL API has undergone successful Private and Public Beta tests and is being prepared for General Release in late 2010.

• From the Species Pages Group: The 2011 Rubenstein Fellows applications have been received and are currently under review. The new class will be announced early next year. 

• From the Learning + Education Group: Lend an ear and discover the wonders of nature—right outside your back door and halfway around the world. In our new season of audio broadcasts, we’ll be learning about life as small as yeast and as big as a bowhead whale in our podcast series, One Species at a Time. 

Help Keep EOL Growing!