Semantic annotations and data integration in ecology

Anne E. Thessen, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, Mark Schildhauer, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, Ramona L. Walls, CyVerse, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ and Christopher Mungall, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

In order to address society’s most pressing challenges, extremely heterogeneous ecological and organismal data must be integrated. Semantic technology, using terms and design patterns from ontologies and knowledge graphs, provides a more scalable approach than database and spreadsheet technology. In this talk, we will discuss the use of semantic technology for ecological data integration in the context of three projects: FuTRES, the Arctic Data Center, and the National Microbiome Data Collaborative. Semantic technology holds great promise for large-scale data integration in ecology, but more work is needed to create a machine-actionable view across data resources.