Zebrasoma flavescens from Bishop Museum,
via Morphbank’s bio image library

Biodiversity, or the presence of numerous plant and animal species in one environment, is the buzzword on everyone’s lips lately. In his best-selling book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), Michael Pollan documents the dangers of monoculture, in particular the vast tracts of corn in the American Mid-West, which contribute to soil erosion locally and devastating algae blooms as far away as the Gulf of Mexico. In April, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $37.5 million to the United Nations Foundation’s seed preservation efforts, the largest such grant in history.

Possibly in response to all this attention, websites celebrating biodiversity are popping up all over the Internet. Some sites worth visiting include:

The Encyclopedia of Life: A 10 year project launched by the Field Museum of Natural History, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library to create a multimedia webpage for each of the 1.8 million named living species on the planet. More >

Biodiversity Heritage Library: An open access “biodiversity commons” consisting of digitized biodiversity resources (including key taxonomic literature) contributed by major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries and research institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History, The Field Museum, Harvard University, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew as well as the Smithsonian Institution.

Zoobank: An open access register for new animal names that currently indexes 1,607,969 taxonomic names. Zoobank is linked to Morphbank, a digital image repository for biological images of all kinds.

Global Crop Diversity Trust: A project of the United Nations Foundation and recipient of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s $37.5 million donation. The Trust promotes crop diversity as a means of fighting hunger and ensuring food security in developing nations.

Millenium Bank Seed Project: A global seed bank by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, focused on conserving wild seed species across the world.

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