Lifemapper is building a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

map of the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

. It is similar to the SETI@Home client, in that it uses a

volunteer computing Volunteer computing is a type of distributed computing in which people donate their computers' unused resources to a research-oriented project, and sometimes in exchange for credit points. The fundamental idea behind it is that a modern desktop co ...

client running primarily on home user's computers to correlate georeferenced biological samples with environmental models of the Earth. It is an experimental GIS, or

Geographic Information System A geographic information system (GIS) is a type of database containing Geographic data and information, geographic data (that is, descriptions of phenomena for which location is relevant), combined with Geographic information system software, sof ...

, that uses a special

genetic algorithm In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to gene ...

to see if predicted rules about where a species lives match up with the species' observed natural settings. It is hoped that this technique will be able to both represent a current "map" of all organisms habitats on Earth as well as predict where organisms may possibly thrive or face extinction due to climate change and other ecological transformations.

External links

Lifemapper website
Volunteer computing projects {{ecology-stub

See also

External links