We are very happy today to announce the availability of an EOL group on SoundCloud you can use to share your recordings of organism sounds with the world through the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL).

Alexander Ljung, founder and CEO of SoundCloud, had this to say about this new collaboration:

Sound plays a huge role in our understanding, identifying and differentiating of animals.  It’s inspiring to see a platform like EOL maximizing SoundCloud to provide a free and centralised source for information on all species that anyone can submit to.

To contribute a sound to EOL through SoundCloud, sign up for a free SoundCloud account, upload your sound(s) to SoundCloud, and then share to the EOL group.  

The sounds shared with the EOL group on SoundCloud will be “harvested” by EOL on a regular basis, and if they meet the requirements described below, EOL will associate the recording with the taxon page of each organism featured in the recordings.  Note that this is very similar to how EOL interacts with the (very popular) EOL group on Flickr.

Requirements:

A. Sounds should be tagged with the scientific names of all organisms identified in the recording.  Species and subspecies identifications are ideal, but if you only know the genus or family, then add these tags instead.

Specific instructions on the different tagging options can be found on the EOL group on SoundCloud.

B. Sounds contributed to EOL must be licensed under one of the following licenses:

1. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA) 
2. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC-BY-NC) 
3. Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 
4. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 
5. Public Domain

(Sounds marked with any of the Creative Commons No Derivatives licenses or an All Rights Reserved license will not be imported. This does not mean *all* of your sounds on SoundCloud must be licensed like this - just the ones you choose to share with EOL. Thanks for your support on this.)

Adding tags and setting the CC license is relatively simple.  It looks a bit like this.

C. If it is possible for you to identify the places in your sound where certain species can be heard, please do!  Here are instructions for how to do this.

If you have questions, let us know by leaving a comment here.  And thank you in advance for your contributions to EOL.

PS - Congratulations to Soundcloud on reaching the impressive 10 million user mark!

Editor’s Note: Today’s guest author is Ari Daniel Shapiro from Atlantic Public Media (APM), a non-profit public media organization in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. APM was the recipient of a Google Earth Outreach Developer Grant, funded through the Google Inc. Charitable Giving Fund at the Tides Foundation. We’re excited to showcase how Atlantic Public Media has weaved Google Earth and KML tours into engaging stories about the diversity of life.

Life gets around. Tiny Arctic Terns soar from the Arctic to the Antarctic, and back, in a single year. A kind of sea algae known as “sea grapes” roam from Australia to the Mediterranean as stowaways, and then promptly conquer their new home.

As a radio producer, I’m used to telling these kinds of stories with audio, weaving together interview tape, ambient sound, and narration. For the last two years, I’ve worked with Atlantic Public Media and the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) to produce an audio series entitled One Species at a Time. Each episode pays homage to a different organism that gallops or creeps or pulses on our planet. We collaborate on these stories with Marie Studer, the EOL’s Learning and Education Director, who has championed our podcast as way to make the natural world come alive and generate excitement amongst people who want to learn about it and explore.

While our podcast and public radio programming brought these tales of the natural world to listeners all over the planet, we always look for ways to tell these stories better and share them more widely. Eduardo Garcia Milagros, a biologist and KML developer in Spain, approached us last year with the idea to use Google Earth as a platform for these mini-documentaries. Brimming with enthusiasm, he shared “When I first opened Google Earth, I went to see my hometown. Once I started exploring KML capabilities, I realized that Google Earth can be an amazing educational tool, especially when you have a good story.” Inspired by his excitement, we decided to identify species whose stories could really be best illustrated through a map, such as the Arctic Tern’s annual migration.

Caption: Our tour on Arctic terns can be viewed on YouTube or downloaded and explored in Google Earth.

Incorporating Google Earth into our narratives proved to be an interesting challenge for me and Jay Allison, my editor on the project and the Executive Director of APM. We wanted to make the most of the map as a medium to bring to life the tale of the Arctic Tern and other species for viewers. By integrating geographic animation and imagery from all over the world with the audio and images from contributing scientists, we were able to support and enhance the story. For example, in the sea algae tour below, we circle the globe to the Amazon rainforest to illustrate a phenomenon in the ecology of the Mediterranean.

Caption: Our sea algae tour can also be found on YouTube or downloaded for viewing in Google Earth.

These tours combine voice, sound, images, video, and data-driven animations to explain how two creatures have been able to travel so much of our planet. Coming from a public radio documentary background, we tend to approach things from a purely narrative or poetic angle, but Google Earth tours allow for audio/visual dialogue as well. The movement isn’t purely in the story. The map can become part of a “conversation,” and we’re just beginning to explore the possibilities.

We hope to produce more of these Biodiversity on the Move tours in the future; we’d like to hear what you think of them and what we can improve next time. Drop us a line here on the EOL Blog.

Posted by Ari Daniel Shapiro, Atlantic Public Media and the Encyclopedia of Life 

Learn about recent EOL news, announcements and activities in the January 2012 EOL newsletter.

To subscribe to the EOL Newsletter, check the box in your EOL Profile on eol.org or visit our newsletter signup page on Facebook.

Scientists from around the world to share research expertise through EOL

Washington, D.C. – January 18, 2012 – The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is pleased to announce the 2012 class of the EOL Rubenstein Fellows. These 16 scientists will use EOL as a platform for sharing their biodiversity research with their colleagues and the general public.

EOL Rubenstein Fellows awards are made possible through a generous donation by David M. Rubenstein to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. The EOL Rubenstein Fellows program supports the work of a diverse group of scientists who are committed to online collaboration and outreach. Fellows receive partial funding for up to one year to translate biodiversity research, databases, and media into rich, online resources through the Encyclopedia of Life. More than 60 fellowships are expected to be awarded over the four years of the program, which began in 2010.

“The 2012 EOL Rubenstein Fellows come from various disciplinary, professional, and cultural backgrounds and are engaged in a broad range of cutting-edge scientific research activities,” said Dr. Erick Mata, EOL Executive Director. “This outstanding group will help deepen our understanding of biodiversity and reach new audiences around the world.”

EOL Rubenstein Fellows are selected on the basis of stellar achievement, promise for continued accomplishment, and the relevance of their work. This year’s recipients specialize in a variety of taxonomic areas, ranging from the evolutionary ecology of invasive plants to ambrosia beetles to Indo-Pacific sponges.

One of the hallmarks of the EOL Rubenstein Fellows program is the diversity of its participants. Successful candidates were chosen from 86 students, postdoctoral and mid-career scientists, and 9 of the 16 are based in countries outside of the United States, including Australia, the Czech Republic, China, and India.

For a full list of EOL Rubenstein Fellows, their specialties, and their institutional affiliations, please visit the 2012 EOL Rubenstein Fellows page on EOL.  The staff of EOL thanks its expert advisors and review committee for their support during the selection process. 

Funded by a generous gift by David M. Rubenstein to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, the EOL Rubenstein Fellows Program provides partial stipend or salary support (up to 50% in one year) for scientists to serve information about the organisms they study through the Encyclopedia of Life. Please visit the EOL Rubenstein Fellows page for more information about the program.

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) operates as an ongoing collaboration of individuals and organizations who share the vision to provide global access to knowledge about life on Earth. EOL is supported by founding sponsors the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  Additional support comes from EOL member institutions and donations from around the world.  

To instructions on how to submit your image for consideration in this contest, please visit the EOL Group on Flickr at this link.

This current contest will be open through Monday, January 23, 2012.  Thank you for your contributions, and good luck!

In this episode of One Species at a Time, we join serious beachcombers along the high-tide line of Sanibel Island, Florida, USA. These “shellers” come in search of beautiful sea shells, sometimes no bigger than a grain of rice, that are the remains of marine snails, bivalves, and other mollusks. Along the beach and at the island’s Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum, we learn why Sanibel’s shores are so rich in molluscan treasure, and how shelling has captured the imaginations of scientists and enthusiasts alike. 

Listen to the podcast

Learn more about Epitonium angulatum, a species of shell found on Sanibel.