University of Glasgow

Roderic Page

![Lp
attenborough](http://lh5.ggpht.com/-pc7jjQCDFwc/UA08X_pc8wI/AAAAAAAABpc/K_1VQRcgziE/lp-attenborough.jpg?imgmax=800 "lp-attenborough.jpg"){border="0"
width="200" style="float:right;"}Half-baked idea time. Thinking about
projects such as the [Earth Microbiome
Project](http://www.earthmicrobiome.org/) and [Genomic
Observatories](http://www.genomicobservatories.org/), the recent
[GBIC2012](http://www.gbic2012.org/) meeting (I\'m still [digesting that
meeting](http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2012/07/post-gbic2012-thoughts.html)),
and mulling over the book [A Vast
Machine](http://www.amazon.com/Vast-Machine-Computer-Climate-Politics/dp/0262013924)
I keep thinking about the possible parallels between climate science and
biodiversity science.  
  
One metaphor from \"A Vast Machine\" is the difference between \"global
data\" and \"making data global\". Getting data from around the world
(\"global data\") is one challenge, but then comes making that data
global:  

> building complete, coherent, and consistent global data sets from
> incomplete, inconsistent, and heterogeneous datasources

  
The focus of [GBIF\'s data portal](http://data.gbif.org) is global data,
bringing together specimen records and observations from all around the
world. This is global data, but one could argue that it\'s not yet ready
to be used for most applications. For example, GBIF doesn\'t give you
the geographic distribution of a given species, merely where it\'s been
recorded from (based on that subset of records that have been
digitised). That\'s a very important start, but if we had for each
species an estimated distribution based on museum records, observations,
published maps, together with habitat modelling, then we\'d be closer to
a dataset that we could use to tackle key questions about the
distribution of biodiversity.  
  
![EMP green
small](http://lh6.ggpht.com/-SXPIMaJzfSk/UA08WjuWlYI/AAAAAAAABpQ/8Tt3GuQNEU0/EMP-green-small.png?imgmax=800 "EMP-green-small.png"){border="0"
width="200" style="float:right;"}But if we continue with the theme that
microbiology is the dark matter of biology, and if we look at projects
like the [Earth Microbiome Project](http://www.earthmicrobiome.org/),
then we could argue that focussing on eukaryote, particularly
macro-eukaryote such as plants, fungi, and animals, may be a mistake. To
use a crude analogy, perhaps we have been focussing on the big phenomena
(equivalent to thunder storms, flash floods, tornados, etc.) rather than
the underlying drivers (equivalent to climatic processes such as those
captured in [global climate
models](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model)). Certainly,
any attempt to model the biosphere is going to have to include the
microbiome, and indeed perhaps the microbiome would be enough to have a
working model of the biosphere?  
  
I\'m simply waving my arms around here (no, really?), but it\'s worth
thinking about whether the macroecology that conservation and
biodiversity focusses on is actually the important thing to consider if
you want to model fundamental biological processes. Might
macro-organisms be like the weather, and the microbiome is like the
climate. As humans we notice the weather, because it is at a scale that
affects us directly. But if the weather is a (not entirely predictable)
consequence of the climate, what is the equivalent of global climate
model for biodiversity?  
  


Half-baked idea time. Thinking about projects such as the Earth Microbiome Project and Genomic Observatories, the recent GBIC2012 meeting (I'm still digesting that meeting), and mulling over the book A Vast Machine I keep thinking about the possible parallels between climate science and biodiversity science.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Microbiome as climate, macrobiome as weather, and a global model of biodiversity