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Yes, you read that right.

Big Data technology is not just limited to help companies or businesses. It is capable of helping us in keeping our planet sustainable.

Oh, if you are naïve to this technology, let us introduce you to it first.

‘Big Data’ refers to the large/complex data sets, created using the established methods formulated for transfer, data capture, storage, curation, and analysis.

It’s been three decades now since the experts started studying Big Data to gain in-depth knowledge of the vegetation dynamics and distributions. In recent times rapid global change has increased dependence on the data resource for interdisciplinary research.

Particulars of Plant Life’s Big Data

It needs multiple lines of integrated frameworks and evidence linking environmental variables to understand vegetation and plant distributions dynamics. This also offers a detailed overview of the ecological processes.

Data collection counts in many sources:

• Species’ demographic parameters
• Environmental maps
• Vegetation plots
• Maps and records of biodiversity

The ‘Big Data’ also includes records of species occurrence and species traits.

The recent years have witnessed expansion in the study which now focuses on the whole plant community and not only on a handful of species. Thanks to the databases like GenBank that store DNA sequences. iDigBio – a Florida University initiative for digitization of U.S. natural history collections is also to be acknowledged for broadening the prospect of research globally.

Role of Big Data in Addressing Various Biodiversity Issues

According to a renowned study author and Florida Museum curator- Doug Soltis, Big Data has a number of practical implications. From buffering and predicting the impacts of global climate change to addressing crucial biodiversity issues, the data records are of great use. The biology professor of Florida University believes it’s high time to expand the use of these applications and tools to a global level. This will benefit the whole community of organisms (and not only plants) living on this human-dominated planet.

These data resources provide conservationists and scientists an easy access to a huge pool of information about the future, past, and present of life on the planet. This not only helps in analysis but also link major data sets. Note that with the growth of these databases, the computational tools have also grown simultaneously.

As per Julie Allen, an assistant biology professor in the Nevada-Reno University and a co-lead author, where the scientists get a better insight into plant ecology and evolution through these resources, the policymakers and land managers use them for identifying the regions that are in need of urgent conservation.

Small-scale studies come to rescue when it comes to the limited study of the plants. With Big Data, conservationists and researches can analyze global plant health. This further helps in proper diagnoses and treatment of the plant life.

Why it’s Important to Track the Global Changes Occurring in the Plant Community?

Ryan Folk, co-lead author and associate museum researcher, says it is impossible to survive without the green cover. You will be amazed to know that countless living communities have evolved in the shadow of plants. The diversification of plants species has helped organisms like ferns, ants, and beetles to nurture. The fact can’t be ignored that vegetation acts as the base layer to the existing diversity of life on Earth.

However, there are many challenges associated with Big Data. Each system has its unique way and resources of collecting plant data is collected in different ways. Making the biological databases to work together smoothly is highly challenging. Marking it as a limitation, Julie Allen says it highly challenging to integrate the data of different systems. We need effective seamless ways in order to ensure efficient use of the database.

Conclusion

The field of biodiversity informatics has grown extensively over the years (Soberon & Peterson, 2004). This progress has given a new direction to plant data analytics. There is now a culture of bringing multiple approaches and disciplines to handle ‘wicked’ problems. It’s high time for the plant ecologists to address various major problems relating to global change research, by adopting advanced techniques. Therefore, Big Data seems the right option here.

Big Data ‘assets’ include archives about the discovery, and analyses conducted on various plant communities for spatial representation and monitoring the impacts of global change on plant life. The massive datasets are no less than crucial information resources that help researches in forecasting the future of vegetation on Earth. If used wisely, Big Data can do wonders in saving the future of plant life (eventually of the whole ecosystem).

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