# Letter to Nature on Wikis

**URL:** <https://forum.biodiversitylibrary.org/t/letter-to-nature-on-wikis/39>\
**Category:** Wikis\
**Created:** [March 24, 2026, 5:04pm UTC](https://forum.biodiversitylibrary.org/t/letter-to-nature-on-wikis/39 "2026-03-24T17:04:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![rdmpage](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex033/user_avatar/forum.biodiversitylibrary.org/rdmpage/32/8_2.png) [@rdmpage](https://forum.biodiversitylibrary.org/u/rdmpage)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 5:04pm UTC](https://forum.biodiversitylibrary.org/t/letter-to-nature-on-wikis/39/1 "2026-03-24T17:04:32Z")

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This letter to the editor by Heidi M. Meudt, @Ambrosia10, Tiago Lubiana, and Sabine von Mering is just out in _Nature_ (behind a paywall). Full text below.

## Join online editing communities

[https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00940-y](https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00940-y)

As biodiversity scientists and active volunteer Wikipedians, we applaud Nature articles calling for researchers to edit Wikipedia (see, for example, [Nature 649, 1079–1080; 2026](https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-00074-1)). Other platforms provided by Wikipedia’s host, the Wikimedia Foundation, also allow scientists to contribute to the quality and accessibility of biodiversity information.

For example, uploading species images to Wikimedia Commons — a repository for media with an open licence, widely used for scientific dissemination — increases the visibility of biodiversity.

And adding biodiversity- related information to Wikidata, Wikimedia’s knowledge database, promotes the FAIR principles: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. Information in Wikidata is interlinked, multilingual, queryable and in the public domain. It is used in biodiversity resources (such as the Atlas of Living Australia) and artificial- intelligence applications. It can also be scrutinized for its research value and biases.

Contributing to open biodiversity knowledge is rewarding, and essential to science and conservation.

- Heidi M. Meudt Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand. heidim@tepapa.govt.nz
- Siobhan Leachman Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand.
- Tiago Lubiana Wikimedia Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil.
- Sabine von Mering Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany.

 ![d41586-026-00940-y](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex033/uploads/biodivlibrary/original/1X/6c5c069217eba58ee0a4cfb54bc5a5ffa2932680.jpeg)