Challenges of unlocking and sharing a century of ecological knowledge

Results of research funded by public agencies should be openly available and usable by others, i.e. comply with Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR) principles in a secure open repository, preferably domain-specific. Furthermore, in order to sustainably manage and conserve our natural heritage long-term, systematically collected and available data are needed. Researchers commonly work, however, in the short-term, within the time-scales of grants and their employment. Such work rarely extends beyond these short time-scales, and seldom is made available in a timely and reusable fashion.

Recently the authors have been involved in re-curating a large dataset of observations from a century old enclosure in semi-arid Australia. This enclosure was reserved in 1925 and fenced to prevent rabbits, sheep and ‘other vermin’, by Prof. TGB Osborn at the University of Adelaide. A variety of biodiversity measurements have proceeded since that date. Over this time several comprehensive temporal analyses were conducted, but it was not until 2014 that the data were digitised and preliminary data made available through TERN. It is these data that we now are making available for re-use in a fashion that will provide a valuable benchmark for today and for the future.

The quality and wide availability of such measurements allows integration with other data types, such as climate and remotely sensed data. These ‘points-of-truth’ provide the basis for model-training. The application of AI and ML will enhance analysis while the addition of new monitoring tools will complement base-line measurements and vice versa.