Towards an open, zoomable atlas for invasion science and beyond

By

Jeschke, Jonathan
Heger, Tina
Kraker, Peter
Schramm, Maxi
Kittel, Christopher
Mietchen, Daniel

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2021

Original Publication

Deutsche entomologische Zeitschrift

Volume

68

Pages

5--18

Subjects

hierarchy-of-hypotheses (HoH) approach , hypothesis networks , interactive knowledge discovery , Invasion biology , invasive alien species , Open Knowledge Maps , open science , Wikidata

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Berlin Nicolai'sche Verlags-Buchandlung 1881-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.68.66685

 

Abstract

Biological invasions are on the rise, and their global impacts on ecosystems, economies and human health are a major challenge. Invasion science is critical to mitigate invader impacts, yet due to the strong increase of data and information in this area, it has become difficult to acquire and maintain an overview of the field. As a result, existing evidence is often not found, knowledge is too rarely transferred to practice, and research is sometimes conducted in pursuit of dead ends. We propose to address these challenges by developing an interactive atlas of invasion science that can be extended to other disciplines in the future. This online portal, which we aim to create in the course of the project described here, will be an evolving knowledge resource and open for anyone to use, including researchers, citizen scientists, practitioners and policy makers. Users will be able to zoom into the major research questions and hypotheses of invasion science, which are connected to the relevant studies published in the field and, if available, the underlying raw data. The portal will apply cutting-edge visualization techniques, artificial intelligence and novel methods for knowledge synthesis.