Lifemapper (www.lifemapper.org) is computational infrastructure which combines specimen data from biological collections with geospatial software to enable powerful macroecological and biogeographical analyses of biological diversity and species distributions.  Lifemapper (LM) is organized around two primary components: 1) a map archive of GBIF species distribution data and predicted current and future species distribution models and, 2) a set of web services and software tools that enable researchers to predict and analyze multi-species, multi-scale patterns of species diversity.  Analysis tools in Lifemapper include Species Distribution Modeling (LmSDM) services based on openModeller as well as Lifemapper Range and Diversity (LmRAD) services which enable research on the biogeography of species and the biodiversity of regions.  LmRAD defines and populates species Presence-Absence Matrices (PAMs),  data structures which act as starting points for multiple methods used to test ecological and evolutionary hypotheses about spatial patterns of biological diversity on continental and global scales.

The Lifemapper Project is developing software plug-ins to Quantum-GIS (QGIS), a versatile open source Geographic Information System (GIS) application, and for VisTrails, an open source scientific workflow environment. Both of these applications provide powerful tools for species distribution and biodiversity modeling based on museum specimen data. Permeating all aspects of the Lifemapper project is a commitment to internet data and communication standards.  Lifemapper implements four OGC standards. Web Processing Service (WPS) defines an interface for publishing geospatial processing services. Web Mapping Service (WMS), allows simple rendering of one or more spatial datasets. Two data services, Web Feature Service (WFS) and Web Coverage Service (WCS) return XML formatted vector data and raster datasets respectively.  

To document and archive a more detailed description of the procedures performed in a LM experiment, Lifemapper is extending the process module of the Ecological Metadata Language or EML. Lifemapper web service, modeling and work flow metadata in EML can be re-executed with the same or modified inputs and parameters to replicate or produce variations on a documented model run or analysis.  The metadata can be published with journal articles, linking the research to the inputs and software, code or web services used to perform the processing. The LM-VisTrails and LM-QGIS plugins allow modeling and analysis runs to be archived, published, discovered, re-created and re-executed.  

The Lifemapper Project will continue to expand offerings of geospatial biodiversity data, computational resources, metadata, and research documentation in well-publicized APIs to make biological specimen data from museums and herbaria an integral and accessible source of information for global scale analyses of biological diversity, and of the patterns and processes of species ranges and distributions.