Lifemapper (www.lifemapper.org) is research infrastructure which combines specimen data from biological collections with geospatial software to enable macroecological and biogeographical analyses of species diversity and distributions. Lifemapper (LM) is organized around two core components, (1) a map archive of GBIF species distribution data and predicted current and future, climate-influenced, species distribution models and, (2) a suite of web services and software integration tools which 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. In collaboration with the University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web and School of Education, we have developed curriculum material and Lifemapper web clients for junior and senior high-school science classes, aimed at fostering student understanding of the role of computational modeling in science and the complex biological impacts of global climate change.

The Lifemapper Project has developed software plug-ins to Quantum-GIS (QGIS), a versatile open source Geographic Information System 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. The Lifemapper Project is committed to industry and research communication standards.  Lifemapper implements four Open Geospatial Consortium 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 (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 public APIs to make biological specimen data from museums and herbaria an integral and accessible source of information for macro-scale studies of biological diversity and of the patterns and processes of species ranges and distributions.