GIATAR: a Spatio-temporal Dataset of Global Invasive and Alien Species and their Traits.

Monitoring and managing the global spread of invasive and alien species requires accurate spatiotemporal records of species presence and information about the biological characteristics of species of interest including life cycle information, biotic and abiotic constraints and pathways of spread. The Global Invasive and Alien Traits And Records (GIATAR) dataset provides consolidated dated records of invasive and alien presence at the country-scale combined with a suite of biological information about pests of interest in a standardized, machine-readable format. We provide dated presence records for 46,666 alien taxa in 249 countries constituting 827,300 country-taxon pairs in locations where the taxon's invasive status is either alien, invasive, or unknown, joined with additional biological information for thousands of taxa. GIATAR is designed to be quickly updateable with future data and easy to integrate into ongoing research on global patterns of alien species movement using scripts provided to query and analyze data. GIATAR provides crucial data needed for researchers and policymakers to compare global invasion trends across a wide range of taxa.

Reconstructing historic and modern potato late blight outbreaks using text analytics.

In 1843, a hitherto unknown plant pathogen entered the US and spread to potato fields in the northeast. By 1845, the pathogen had reached Ireland leading to devastating famine. Questions arose immediately about the source of the outbreaks and how the disease should be managed. The pathogen, now known as Phytophthora infestans, still continues to threaten food security globally. A wealth of untapped knowledge exists in both archival and modern documents, but is not readily available because the details are hidden in descriptive text. In this work, we (1) used text analytics of unstructured historical reports (1843-1845) to map US late blight outbreaks; (2) characterized theories on the source of the pathogen and remedies for control; and (3) created modern late blight intensity maps using Twitter feeds. The disease spread from 5 to 17 states and provinces in the US and Canada between 1843 and 1845. Crop losses, Andean sources of the pathogen, possible causes and potential treatments were discussed. Modern disease discussion on Twitter included near-global coverage and local disease observations. Topic modeling revealed general disease information, published research, and outbreak locations. The tools described will help researchers explore and map unstructured text to track and visualize pandemics.