Editing Lifemapper (section)

{{Short description|Building a species diversity map of the world}}
{{refimprove|date=October 2024}}
{{notability|date=October 2024}}

'''Lifemapper''' is building a [[species]] [[Biodiversity|diversity]] map of the [[world]].  It is similar to the SETI@Home client, in that it uses a [[volunteer computing]] client running primarily on home user's computers to correlate georeferenced biological samples with environmental models of the Earth.  It is an experimental GIS, or [[Geographic information system|Geographic Information System]], that uses a special [[genetic algorithm]] to see if predicted rules about where a species lives match up with the species' observed natural settings.  It is hoped that this technique will be able to both represent a current "map" of all organisms habitats on Earth as well as predict where organisms may possibly thrive or face extinction due to climate change and other ecological transformations.