Discovering Ecologically Relevant Knowledge from Published Studies through Geosemantic Searching

It is easier to search the globe for research on the genes of a local plant than it is to find local research on that plant's ecology. As a result, ecologists are often unaware of published local research and unlikely to find relevant studies from similar environments worldwide. Location information in ecological studies can be harnessed to enable geographic knowledge searches and could be standardized to make searches more fruitful. To demonstrate this potential, we developed the JournalMap Web site (www.journalmap.org). Easy access to geographic distributions of knowledge opens new possibilities for using ecological research to detect and interpret ecological patterns, evaluate current ecological knowledge, and facilitate knowledge creation. We call on journals and publishers to support standard reporting of study locations in publications and metadata, and we advocate georeferencing past studies.