e-Science from the Antarctic to the GRID

Monitoring life-processes in a frozen lake in the Antarctic raises many practical challenges. To supplement manual monitoring we have designed, built and successfully deployed a remote monitoring device on one of the lakes of interest. This returns data to the Antarctic base over the Iridium satellite phone network. This provides us with a new and uniquely detailed view of the lifeprocesses in that environment, and is allowing us to understand that environment in new ways, for example exploring diurnal effects, and detailed energy flow models. We have integrated this sensing device into a common Grid-based software infrastructure; this makes the device and its sensors visible on the Grid as services, and also maintains an archive of sensor measurements. A desktop user interface allows non-programmers to work with this data in a flexible way. The experience of creating and deploying this device has given us a rich view of the many elements and processes that must be brought together to make possible this kind of e-Science

Indicative Distribution Maps for Ecological Functional Groups - Level 3 of IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology

This dataset includes the original version of the indicative distribution maps and profiles for Ecological Functional Groups - Level 3 of IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (v2.0). Please refer to Keith et al. (2020). The descriptive profiles provide brief summaries of key ecological traits and processes for each functional group of ecosystems to enable any ecosystem type to be assigned to a group. Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (value of 1, coloured red) or minor occurrences (value of 2, coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. Minor occurrences are areas where an ecosystem functional group is scattered in patches within matrices of other ecosystem functional groups or where they occur in substantial areas, but only within a segment of a larger region. Most maps were prepared using a coarse-scale template (e.g. ecoregions), but some were compiled from higher resolution spatial data where available (see details in profiles). Higher resolution mapping is planned in future publications. We emphasise that spatial representation of Ecosystem Functional Groups does not follow higher-order groupings described in respective ecoregion classifications. Consequently, when Ecosystem Functional Groups are aggregated into functional biomes (Level 2 of the Global Ecosystem Typology), spatial patterns may differ from those of biogeographic biomes. Differences reflect the distinctions between functional and biogeographic interpretations of the term, biome