Kicking off Catalogue of Life/@Biodivlibrary/EOL/GBIF, et al meeting in Leiden at Naturalis

@BioDivLib & @EOL folk (@UDCMRK, @WUlate & @cydparr) at Phenotype Ontology RCN

Attending the Third Phenotype Ontology Research Coordination Network Annual Summit meeting, Durham, NC, 25-27 February 2013 along with William Ulate (BHL/Missouri Botanical Garden) and Cyndy Parr (Encyclopedia of Life). Plus around 57 other biologists, informaticians, and ontologists.

On the first day of the meeting was a "Hands-on Natural language annotation mixer show & tell." This was a "speed-dating" session where about twelve projects or people anchored tables and the rest of the participant were broken into groups of 4-5 and spread out to all the tables. Each table anchor had about 7-10 minutes with the group to discuss their project/problem and get feedback/insight from the mixers. BHL had table 8 (anchored by me). It was great to hear that well over half of the participants were very familiar with BHL and discussed current or future uses in their work.

From the description of the meeting: "The overall goal of the RCN Annual Summit meeting is to introduce and establish communication and collaboration among scientists from different research backgrounds. The two primary themes for this meeting are the use of text mining phenotypes and representing behavior in ontologies. The use of text mining is of important wherever there is a lot of information locked up in written material, including an enormous amount of phenotypic information. We have around ten text-mining experts with a broad range of expertise attending this meeting, and you would have many opportunities to interact with them and possibly build proposals. A small behavior group is funded by the RCN to meet the day preceding the annual meeting, and they will be presenting their report at the annual meeting and be available for small group discussion."

Among those attending were friends of BHL, Dr. Hong Cui. Dr. Cui has worked with BHL data on a number of projects, papers, and presentations. Gaurav Vaidya has worked with BHL on projects related to Wikipedia and taxonomic referencing. Katja Seltmann (lead author on the imporant new article "Utilizing Descriptive Statements from the Biodiversity Heritage Library to Expand the Hymenoptera Anatomy Ontology," Katja C. Seltmann, Zsolt Pénzes, Matthew J. Yoder, Matthew A. Bertone, Andrew R. Deans. PLOS One. 18 February 2013), and staffer in the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, gave insights into use of BHL at AMNH.

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Hong Cui

Gaurav Vaidya

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The meeting is being held in Durham at the NESCent  NESCent is The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) is a nonprofit science center dedicated to cross-disciplinary research in evolution. NESCent's mission is to "NESCent promotes the synthesis of information, concepts and knowledge to address significant, emerging, or novel questions in evolutionary science and its applications. NESCent achieves this by supporting research and education across disciplinary, institutional, geographic, and demographic boundaries."

Harvest dinner for EOL

Sadly, they didn't not include binomials on the menu.

Nathan and David, hanging at the @EOL after meeting relaxing

Presentation for the EOL Team meeting, Cambridge, MA, 29 November 2012

Presentation for the EOL Team meeting, Cambridge, MA, 29 November 2012:

The Biodiversity Heritage Library: EOL Team Report: November 2012. Martin R. Kalfatovic. EOL Team Meeting. Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, MA, 29 November 2012.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library: EOL Team Report: November 2012 from Martin Kalfatovic

World's Fair Donuts, St. Louis

A visit to the Missouri Botanical Garden

Aboard the Morpho, from Gamboa to Barro Colorado Island

Being based in Washington, DC, it's great to be able to go out to where Smithsonian research is happening in the field. This month I had the great opportunity to visit the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. My first two days were in Panama City where I visted our library at the Tupper Center. But on 17 January, I boarded a bus with colleagues from the Encyclopedia of Life and invited guests from around the world to Gamboa. There, we boarded one of the large contingent of Smithsonian boats, The Morpho, for the hour long ride across Lake Gatun to Barro Colorado Island (BCI). On the Lake (which is a part of the Panama Canal) our smaller boat glided past the large freighters from around the world. Coming on the BCI field station, the buildings perched on the side of the island with the docks below), was a bit like something from a Joseph Conrad novel (had he written about Central America). On the island, we had a very good and productive meeting and some great wildlife watching.

Creatures of the Night, a hike up the Fausto trail, Barro Colorado Island

After a long day in a meeting room (albeit a wonderfully air conditioned meeting room), a great dinner in the dinning hall, and some libations and conviviality with the rest of the group, a bunch of us decided to take a night hike up one of the trails. Flashlights and cameras in hand, we headed up one of the trails in search of creatures of the night. Didn't take long to score a nice find, a pair of tarantulas. One calmly sitting beside the trail and the other nearby just poking out of her burrow. Other highlights of the walk include a small leaf frog, a metalic shield bug (my find), a small mantis, a wonderfully camouflauged spider, a millipede that seemed happy to pose for photos, and another large spider busy working on its web. I turned back after about 90 minutes, but the rest of the group carried on for another hour. More photos from Katja are here.

The comforting glow of our electronic devices

In the olden days, when researchers were out in the field, they would gather around the campfire. At our meeting for the Global EOL Content Summit at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Barro Colorado Island, Panama, we didn't have a campfire. So, when the sun set and we gathered on a balcony overlooking the docks for an after dinner drink, all we had, besides our own company, was the comforting glow of a wide array of electronic devices.

Some of the animals of Barro Colorado Island

Some of the animals of Barro Colorado Island, Panama. Seen during the Global EOL Content Summit.

• Agouti  
• Howler Monkey  
• Dung Beetle 
• Great Tinamou  
• Army ants 
• Leaf-cutting ants  
• Bats 
• Tarantulas 
• Hunstman spiders 
• Mantids 
• Leaf frogs

Here the EOL Collection started for the meeting.

My spidey friend ... not quite Canberra sized, but big

I'm sharing my room here at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute field station with William Ulate from our BHL partner at the Missouri Botanical Garden and this nice sized Huntsman spider. Not nearly as big as the species that I met in the Atlas of Living Australia conference room in June 2010, but pretty big and speedy.

This time round, I have a scale for the people who believe that the spider grew in size with each telling of the story. As you can see, s/he is just about as big as a hotel key card. Plus, s/he is staying in the shower (at least I hope s/he stays in the shower).

Sadly, I have only William and the spider for company; the folks in the next room down had a bat sleep over last night.

My presentation for the Global EOL Content Summit

Photo by William Ulate

The Biodiversity Heritage Library: One Year Update: 2011 - 2012. Global EOL Content Summit. Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Barro Colorado Island, Panama. 17 January 2012.

Here's my presentation at the meeting. Thanks to William for taking the photos.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library: One Year Update: 2011 - 2012

View more presentations from Martin Kalfatovic

Global EOL Content meeting dinner

Barro Colorado Island

Money, tickets, passports, yellow book, N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide

Heading to Panama (via MIA). Work visit at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Library, and then to research station on Barro Colorado Island in Lake Gatun for an Encyclopedia of Life meeting (representing the Biodiversity Heritage Library along with William Ulate).