Coral reefs, Encyclopedia of Life....

Coral reefs may disappear by 2050 due to acidification of seas by increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

In other news, the Encyclopedia of Life website mentioned in OEB 10 today by Brian Farrell will be launching its test version early next year. Presently you can view a few demonstration pages on the website, as well as check out the promotional video on YouTube. Harvard is one of the cornerstone institutions sponsoring this project with its institutional resources, and is specifically in charge of education and outreach, and undergraduates here might get the opportunity to be involved in this in some way, so stay tuned!

Other projects in a similar vein have failed to take off in the past, but the success of Wikipedia and the emergence of new technologies for processing and manipulating information, digitizing scientific literature, and producing pages collaboratively were some of the reasons why foundations like the MacArthur Foundation have given grants to the project for the next few years.

Don't be mislead by the demonstration pages shown on the website, though. Given how little we know about most of the species described in the taxonomic literature (in many cases little more than a name and a brief description) the majority of species pages in the Encyclopedia will contain the barest minimum of data. It'll be interesting to see how this stimulates interest in finding out more to fill in the gaps in our knowledge. Right now, the EoL has also entered into agreements to use data from other databases like the Tree of Life, AmphibiaWeb, and Tropicos. Coverage for various taxonomic groups will gradually come online as expert communities for the taxa get together and agree on the presentation.

The EoL will feature only extant species, however, and not fossils, but given how fast anthropogenic extinction might be proceeding, one fears that a large part of the Encyclopedia of Life might instead be obituary pages, or an "Encyclopedia of Death." Perhaps when this project is in full swing we might be able to see the full extent to which biodiversity loss has affected us.