Transcript Slide 1 - UMBC ebiquity research group

SPIRE (Semantic Prototypes in Research Ecoinformatics) is a distributed, interdisciplinary
research project exploring the use of semantic web technologies in support of science research
and education. We are building prototypes for inclusion in NBII, with a focus on the early
detection and warning of invasive species.
Species List Constructor. Click a county, get a
species list. Currently supports terrestrial
vertebrates in California - coming soon: plants,
insects and fish. Following the ELVIS
philosophy, our focus will be on provenance: e.g.
'what is the evidence for and against the presence
of bobcats in my back yard?'.
Evidence Provider allows a
user to drill down on a specific
link to see the evidence for it.
Below: expressed in OWL.
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Food Web Constructor (FWC). Taxa can be
entered several different ways. The user can choose
which food web studies to use for prediction.
Currently, our dstabase includes 257 studies.
ELVIS (the Ecosystem Location Visualization and Information System) is a suite
of tools motivated by the belief that food web structure plays a role in the success
or failure of potential species invasions. Because very few ecosystems have been
the subject of empirical foodweb studies, response teams are typically unable to
get quick answers to questions like “what are likely prey and predator species of
the invader in the new environment?”
The focus of ELVIS is on providing evidence, as opposed to giving definitive
answers to queries.
Ongoing Activities
• Refinement of predictive model
• Ontology development
• Modularization of design
Goal: a service-oriented architecture,
fully incorporated into the semantic web
1: Two evolutionary steps
up and down
True links
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2: Four steps up and down
3: Limiting to data from
“False” links
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257
relevant habitats
So far, FWC minimally reconstructs the 155 taxa food web in St. Marks, FL estuarine
food web (data from Christian & Luczkowicz 1999).
Scenario:
FWC Results. Each suspected link is reported,
together with references to supporting evidence.
Summary statistics of the food web are also
reported.
PEaCE
St. Marks
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Exotic fish Nile Tilapia is predicted to
eat algae (red circle on left) and have
no potential predators. Taxa nearby in
the food web (to right) could be
impacted by or mediate the
introduction of this competitor.
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Architectural Nirvana: Ecological information
sources of the world annotate their data with RDF,
enabling ELVIS to query, harvest, and update its
local database as necessary.
Acknowledgements: Research support provided by NSF ITR, and NBII. Food web
visualization provided by Bongshin Lee and TreePlus