An online encyclopedia aiming to describe every type of animal and plant on the planet has reached 170,000 entries and is helping research into ageing, climate change and even the spread of insect pests.
The Encyclopedia of Life(www.eol.org), a project launched in 2007 likely to cost $100 million (€70 million), says it wants to describe all the 1.8 million known species – from apples to zebras – within a decade.
“We’re picking up speed,” James Edwards, the EOL executive director based at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said yesterday of the 170,000 entries with content in a common format vetted by experts. A year ago, it had 30,000 entries.
He said everyone from scientists to schoolchildren could use the EOL as a “field guide” or contribute a photograph or an observation of an animal.
A problem for many biologists is that they often study just one species so do not know if their findings apply more widely, said James Hanken, director of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and chair of the EOL steering committee.
Among other projects, the encyclopedia was aiming to expand with fossil species. And it was working on versions focused on Australia, the Netherlands and China. The EOL said it got extra funding of $12.5 million from two private foundations. Mr Edwards said the project needed more funds.
One problem is that 20,000 new species are described every year – species on the planet may be as many as 100 million.