In a new publication, we investigate comparative visualization approaches for an improved understanding of biodiversity.

Costa Rica’s biodiversity is without example – hundreds of thousands of species living in a country somewhat larger than Switzerland. To structure this enormous variety, researchers in the country and worldwide classify species in so-called taxonomies. In an ongoing collaboration with computer scientists from TEC (Costa Rica) and University of Stuttgart (Germany), we are investigating software tools that visualize differences between versions of such taxonomies. These comparative visualizations help to better work with and develop biological taxonomies. Good visualizations lead towards a better understanding of biodiversity, which lastly is a basis for taking informed actions to preserve the rich biodiversity in Costa Rica and elsewhere. We have recently published an article in “Research Ideas and Outcomes” evaluating existing visualization approaches for taxonomy comparison against typical tasks that biologists and taxonomist perform. Read more about Costa Rica’s biodiversity: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_Costa_Rica Image: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildlife_of_Costa_Rica