GNA Meeting, Paris France

Global Names Architecture Meeting

David RemsenSenior Programme OfficerGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)

2011

Somewhere around 2001

From T.E. Glover, The Fishes of Southwestern Japan, c.1870

The long-finned squid, Loligo pealeii (Laseur)

Orthography

Agalinus paupercula borealisAgalinus pauperculum borealisAgalinis paupercula var. BorealisAgalinus pauperculum var. borealisAgalinus paupercula var. borealisAgalinus paupercula var. borealis PennellAgalinus paupercula Britton var. borealis PennellAgalinus paupercula (Gray) Britt. var. borealis PennellAgalinis paupercula (A.Gray) Britton var. borealis PennellAgalinus paupercula (Gray) Britton var. borealis (Pennell) Zenkert 1934

Orthography

Reconciling different forms of the same name

The Bluefish, Temnodon saltator

Nomenclature

P. carinii sec 1

P. carinii sec 2 P. jiroveci

Taxonomy

With access to authority information

Higher Taxonomy

Without authority information

Higher Taxonomy

Issues that are not uniqueParticularly in federated systems

• Taxonomic Data Sources

• Classification

• Taxonomic Status

• Heterotypic Synonymy

• Taxon Identifiers

• Nomenclatural Data Sources

• Orthography

• Nomenclatural Status

• Objective Synonymy

• Nomenclatural Identifiers

Addressed by…

Catalog of Life

Index Fungorum

Species Fungorum

Tropicos

LepIndex

GRIN

DSMZ

Euzeby index

IPNIITIS

Euro + Med Plantbase

Index Nominum Diptorum

Orthoptera Species File

The Plant List

NCBI Taxonomy

World Register of Marine Species

Angiosperm Phylogeny Group list

Solanaceae Source

Amphibian Species World

World Spider Catalogue

AlgaeBase

Index Nominum Algarum

Index Nominum Genericorum

ZooBank

ERMS

IUCN RedList

Mammal Species of World

Catalog of Fishes

FishBase

Catalog of Life

Index Animalium

ION

Nomenclator Zoologicus

Fauna Europaea

IRMNG

NZOR

Coleorrhyncha Species File

A lot of this…

• Common

• Discovery Network

• Documentation (metadata) model

• Data Sharing Format

• Data Sharing tools

• Consensus Web Service methods

• Few resolvable identifers

• No common resolution output

• Little Integration

Not a lot of this

“All accumulated information of a species is tied to a scientific name, a name that serves as a link between what has been learned in the past and what we today add to the body of knowledge.”

(nearly) All names matter

• Global discovery of nomenclature and taxonomic resources

• Common access to these resources

• Reconcile names labeling data and information to nomenclature and taxa

• Embedded services that add value to these resources

We need

uBio

An index of all names used with biodiversity information

reconciled to authoritative nomenclators

An index of taxon resources and species checklists

Nice Idea

No Architecture

Without an architecture

• Ad-hoc• Requires personal networking• No clear fit to a larger picture

Common approach to common tasks

Architecture• Global Registry for resource discovery• Common and documented data

standards– Metadata– Data– Vocabularies

• Data Sharing tools• Common web service methods• Resolvable identifers (names/taxa)`

Architecture

• Enable global discovery of taxonomic and nomenclatural resources– Derivative products (regional and

thematic species checklists)

• Enable resources to be shared in a consistent manner

• Promote development of new derived products

Enable global discovery

Integrated Publishing Toolkit

• Supports Publication of Species Checklists (sensu lato)• Supports EML as resource metadata format• Darwin Core Archive as output formats• Possible to add

• ISO metadata output• TCS data output – lossy relative to source data

Integrated Publishing Toolkit 2.0

Lowered the technical barriers to data publishing

• Publishing with spreadsheets• Publishing via Email• Publishing with no installed tools• Publishing with no tools at all

Darwin Core Archives

Lots of documentation

> 2500 downloads English/French/Spanish

Many resources available

Promote Development of New Derived Products

GBIF Involved but not integrated

• Global Names Index• Global Name Usage Bank

Supported by what has been presented

Checklist Bank for GBIF network

Checklist Bank

Status: Dev version in place. Integration with GBIF data portal 2011

http://ecat-dev.gbif.org/

i4Life

• Common platform for multiple initiatives to discover and exchange taxonomic and nomenclatural information

• New derived products that improve efficiency and utility of taxonomic process

• Embed taxonomy within larger biodiversity informatics challenges

Vision