The (New) Web of Life

All the known creatures on earth may soon be a click away

E. O. Wilson has a dream. In 2003, in an essay in the scholarly journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, the eminent Harvard biologist sketched out his vision for what he called "a single-portal electronic encyclopedia of life." This encyclopedia -- a Web site, essentially -- would grant each of the documented 1.8 million species on earth its own page featuring a detailed summary of everything known about it: its scientific name, habitat, and geographic range and distribution; what it eats and is eaten by; and where it fits on the evolutionary tree of life. There would also be hyperlinks to genetic databases and other pertinent information. It would be freely accessible to everyone everywhere, scientist and layman alike. In a speech at the 2007 TED conference, an annual mixer of creative and scientific minds, Wilson likened the encyclopedia to "a biological moon shot" in its ambition and imperative.

He'd hit the right note for the right crowd at the right time. Work had already started on the encyclopedia, and financial support was beginning to flow. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation together provided $12.5 million in seed money, with the prospect of additional funds dependent on the program's progress. Several major scientific organizations signed on with personnel, logistical support, and financing. (Wilson, though not directly involved in the encyclopedia, operates as its avuncular totem and most prominent booster.) All told, the project could consume as much as $100 million in its first decade. Meanwhile, the software developer Adobe Systems, known for its popular creative applications like Photoshop and Flash, volunteered to develop a cutting-edge user interface for the encyclopedia, something to shake the cobwebs off the old "tree of life" metaphor and reimagine it for the twenty-first century. Silicon Valley discovered nature, and it was good.

In February 2008 the Encyclopedia of Life saw first light at eol.org. With Web pages for 30,000 species, mostly fish and amphibians, it was but a shadow of its promised future self. Yet with its appealing layout and media visibility, the site proved instantly popular, crashing five hours -- and nearly two million page hits -- after launch. The encyclopedia has grown rapidly since, adding staff and expertise, forming new partnerships with libraries and biodiversity databases, expanding the pool of organisms it can represent online, and adding interactive components like the opportunity for users to post comments and tags or upload photographs via Flickr. It's not yet the Google of biology, but it's one step closer. "We showed proof of concept," says David Patterson, a microbiologist at the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory who helped develop the encyclopedia's software engine. "The rest is just a chore."

Biology has been creeping online for some time now. The Wikipedia model is especially contagious, and numerous subject-specific Wikis, such as GeneWiki and WikiPathways, have sprung up to help scientists share information, interact, and collaborate. For veteran biodiversity scientists accustomed to the dour theme of species loss and the loneliness of an underfunded profession, the excitement and attention surrounding the encyclopedia are a particularly refreshing change. "I've never been involved in anything in my entire life that has generated so much enthusiasm," says Jesse Ausubel, an environmental scientist at Rockefeller University and the founding chairman of the Encyclopedia of Life's original steering committee. "The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. The biggest problem has been managing expectations. People don't want to wait. This should have existed yesterday; they want it tomorrow."

Some, however, are skeptical. "In my 25 years of databasing and bioinformatics, I've seen so many projects like this come and go that it's hard to get excited about the next one," says Barbara Thiers, director of the New York Botanical Garden's Herbarium, a prized collection of several thousand plant specimens from around the world. And with so many species in peril, is $100 million really best spent by giving every one of them ... a Web page? Meanwhile, the 1.8 million known species are a small fraction of all those yet to be discovered, catalogued, and named. How would the encyclopedia help them?

Patterson sympathizes. As a leading expert on marine microbes -- a vast, poorly known, and terribly uncharismatic category of organisms -- he appreciates the plight of the world's species and of the unheralded scientists who track them. Yes, he says, the encyclopedia will be cool, comprehensive, and visually dazzling. But the real promise is hidden under the hood. The encyclopedia's true gift, he contends, is in its potential to pool and sift biological data from everywhere, in a manner that will change the quantity and quality of what scientists -- and casual viewers -- can learn about life on earth and the manner in which they do so. Never mind evolution; this is revolution.

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