The University of Kansas (KU) is establishing a national computational laboratory for the analysis of biodiversity and environmental information. The Kansas Environmental Informatics Lab (KEIL) will apply high-performance visualization and database systems to computationally-intensive environmental and biodiversity research problems. KEIL unites a cross-disciplinary campus consortium of systematists, ecologists and computer scientists with specializations in visualization, database and high-speed communications organized around a common research focus of biodiversity and ecological data analysis. We are collaborating with the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) on research related to real-time access to terabyte sized environmental data archives over gigabit networks. KU is making a fundamental commitment to KEIL: a $300,000 cash match to the proposal ($150,000 from KU and $150,000 from the Kansas Technology Enterprise Corporation); a new, full-time position for the Director of KEIL (PI); $100,000 for startup costs; the four-year, $1~0,000 Self Family Graduate Fellowship in Environmental Informatics, and space and administrative support in the Natural History Museum for KEIL. KEIL will be the first facility in the United States totally devoted to research questions in biodiversity and environmental informatics. These research questions are grand challenges-- we will demonstrate the effective use of high-performance computing leveraged against a 300-year investment in biodiversity documentation and burgeoning environmental data resources. Research themes to be investigated by KEIL include: Integration of heterogeneous environmental and biological museum data sets Predictive modeling of species spatial distribution based on real-time aggregation of species occurrence in combination with climate and geophysical data, as well as models of species distributions under climate change scena rios Database architectures for access and analysis of very large environmental data archives, in collaboration with SDSC Visualization methodologies for morphometric and phylogenetic data On-the-fly visualizations of landscape, terrain, species distribution and climate data, integrating views at scales ranging from specific collection points to global perspectives. On-line access, user interface, and electronic publication systems for disseminating biodiversity information using VRML, SGML, HGML These research themes will parallel KU training activities in computer science and biological research. Several academic units and programs at KU are involved in ecological biodiversity and computer science research and will use the facility. Students at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence are being trained in these programs. KEIL instrumentation will also be the platform for: research on national museum community architectures; training on community solutions and applications; and recruitment of students and professionals to build and maintain a national biodiversity information infrastructure. To support the research mission of KEIL, we are requesting a four-processor SGI Onyx server. The Onyx is engineered to function simultaneously as a high performance compute, visualization and I/O (database) server. Three SIG Indigo2 workstations connected by an ATM work group LAN will provide additional seats for faculty, postdoctoral fellows, staff and students for development and visualization work. An ATM network to SDCS and other data centers will complete the architecture.
