Taxonomy as an eScience

• Published in: Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences Vol. 367; no. 1890; pp. 953 - 966
• Main Authors: Clark, Benjamin R, Godfray, H. Charles J, Kitching, Ian J, Mayo, Simon J, Scoble, Malcolm J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London The Royal Society 13-03-2009
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Biological taxonomies; Biology - methods; Classification; Computer Simulation; Computer software; Identifiers; Internet; Models, Biological; Online Peer Review; Plant names; Plants; Quality assurance; Science - methods; Software; Taxa; Taxonomic Revisions; Taxonomies; Terminology; Web-Based Taxonomy
• ISSN: 1364-503X; 1471-2962
• DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2008.0190

The Internet has the potential to provide wider access to biological taxonomy, the knowledge base of which is currently fragmented across a large number of ink-on-paper publications dating from the middle of the eighteenth century. A system (the CATE project) is proposed in which consensus or consolidated taxonomies are presented in the form of Web-based revisions. The workflow is designed to allow the community to offer, online, additions and taxonomic changes ('proposals') to the consolidated taxonomies (e.g. new species and synonymies). A means of quality control in the form of online peer review as part of the editorial process is also included in the workflow. The CATE system rests on taxonomic expertise and judgement, rather than using aggregation technology to accumulate taxonomic information from across the Web. The CATE application and its system and architecture are described in the context of the wider aims and purpose of the project.