General introduction

Understandably, scientific journals have strict space constraints that impede their attaching genotype matrices associated with all the empirical molecular population genetic investigations that they publish.

However, this limitation brings about at least one negative consequence: each day, important and expensive genetic diversity knowledge is irreversibly frozen in papers that process the information contained in genotype matrices to a very limited extent, usually under only one of many presently possible conceptual scopes.

Critically, the absence of a public web repository to make those genotype matrices publicly available in a universal standard that facilitates a versatile statistical analysis prevents many further applications of these data to estimate parameters not considered in the published papers, to use alternative present or future statistical approaches, or to enhance our current understanding of evolutionary change through proper standardisation and meta-analysis.

Estimates of genetic variation in natural populations are increasingly important for understanding and conserving biodiversity; however, the hypotheses that they help to substantiate in scientific papers are only an aliquot of the total knowledge contained in the genotype matrices wherefrom they derive.

Other potentially useful genetic diversity data either are never published, or they are found in inaccessible media, thus forming a knowledge limbo unattainable for the down-to-earth objectives of most researchers. Such is the case of internal reports, some PhDs, and many other kinds of sound investigation efforts.

Substantial amounts of knowledge on biodiversity's genetic diversity remain thus dormant in the entrails of private computers scattered throughout our planet.

Demiurge was created to make genotype matrices plus ancillary information relevant to their interpretation available to the whole scientific community in the form of "genetic diversity digests", and to allow an efficient use of all the existing knowledge on biodiversity's genetic diversity with the help of the T4 capabilities. We believe that it may also represent a very powerful resource for scientific journals (especially if they are peer-reviewed), educators, and biodiversity managers.