This BioLists site is actively being reorganised.

Most recent update: 1-March-2012

BIOLISTS - A UNIQUE GRASS-ROOTS BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM.

With BioLists, you quickly and easily make biodiversity checklists for your selections of any/all named species.

Your lists are automatically classified so that they indicate the broad evolutionary relationships of the species.

Any/all species names are listed in the same, that is, predictable, taxonomic sequence in any/all checklists.

Species records are designed to be used as an index for recording and managing species-related information.

In these and other ways, BioLists records are ideal for Ecology, Conservation and, of course, Natural History.

 

In the 1980s I devised a system to make taxonomy accessible to any interested person.  By the early 1990s I had a fully functional program, the SKI-System (SKIS) running on MS-DOS.   Advances in computer hardware soon made this redundant and professional interest in Taxonomy was at a low ebb. Now, biodiversity issues show that a web-based version is needed.

BioLists (c)  &  SKIS (c),   1990-2011       and   Gunn Interactive

Comments welcome.   Cedric Woods, Dunedin, New Zealand.   drcedric@gmail.com

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DELETE BELOW

 

SKIS?   Today we're "sliding down the razor blade of Life" (Tom Lehrer),
                           gaining momentum to ascend the other side of the biodiversity crisis tomorrow.

My response: (Draft - 22-July-2011)

A  FLEXIBLE,  BIODIVERSITY  INFORMATION  MANAGEMENT  SYSTEM

- for Grass-roots (and Professional) Taxonomic and associated Data Capture.

With BioLists, basic taxonomic classification is used as an index for the management of species-related information.

In the 1980s I devised a system to make taxonomy accessible to any interested person. By the early 1990s I had a fully functional program running on DOS, but advances in computer hardware soon made this redundant. Now, I again have computer support for a new version - a web-based version.

WHAT:
This new system:
- allows exceedingly rapid electronic data capture of taxonomic names and associated information.

- gives instant access to basic biological taxonomy in classified records and lists. Helps organise projects.

- is primarily for environmental data capture, eg inventory work in the field using a hand-held device.

- will assist any size of ecology or monitoring project; can be made free of taxonomic complications.

- makes checklists that are all taxonomically compatible for easy comparison and integration.

- produces classified checklists that are instantly uploadable to screen, the web, email or disk.

- provides (field) data in a suitable form for immediate integration into spreadsheets and databases.

- equally valid for data management that is linked to taxonomy - by librarians, journalists, parents, ...

- produces taxonomic indexes for books, theses and reports. Suitable for school use (age 11+).

- is a tool for investigating all biodiversity at many levels, such as projects involving climate change.

- will serve biodiversity conservation, education, information technology, agriculture and related areas.

- is intentionally convenient for use of available Common Names; hoping to foster better use of these.

- can hope to foster natural history, and help reintroduce it to museums that have lost touch with it.

- will be of use to science administrators and professional taxonomists (outside their areas of expertise).

Inter alia, it will provide a pragmatic mechansim for quickly reducing lax taxonomy.

LOCAL ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION - - GLOBAL UNDERSTANDING - - INTEGRATED ACTION