Maximizing the Value of Ecological Data with Structured Metadata: An Introduction to Ecological Metadata Language (EML) and Principles for Metadata Creation

Abstract

The long-term value and the utility of ecologicaldata for advancing ecological understanding andsolving important environmental problems depend onthe availability of suitable and adequate metadata, ordescriptive information describing data content, context,quality, structure, and accessibility (Michener etal. 1997). As a discipline, ecology is moving beyondits tradition of small-scale empirical observations andexperiments conducted by one or a few investigatorsat relatively small scales (Palmer et al. 2004, 2005).The need to expand the temporal and spatial scales ofecological research necessitates increased data sharingand mechanisms to enable long-term community accessto data (e.g., Olson and McCord 2000, Andelmanet al. 2004) and presents new challenges for integrationof heterogeneous ecological information across arange of spatial, temporal, and organizational scales(Andelman and Willig 2004).