The European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy, EDIT, is the collective answer of 27 leading European, North American and Russian institutions to a call of the European Commission, issued in 2004, for a network in « Taxonomy for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research ». This project has started on the 1rst of March 2006 and will last 5 years. Taxonomy provides the basis for understanding biodiversity. Overcoming the taxonomic impediment involves both having enough trained taxonomists and having taxonomic information available to those who need it. The project objectives are to help to reduce the fragmentation in European taxonomic research and expertise and to coordinate the European contribution to the global taxonomic effort, in particular the Global Taxonomy Initiative, through an integrated initiative aimed at improving society’s capacity for biodiversity conservation. ... [Information of the supplier]
The mission of the International Institute for Species Exploration is to inspire, encourage and enable the advancement of taxonomy and exploration of earth’s species. The IISE represents a convergence of cutting-edge computer science and engineering with the goals of descriptive taxonomy. The results will include a transformation of taxonomy, the rapid discovery of earth’s species, and open access to reliable information about them. ... [Information of the supplier]
Dieses System zur Bestimmung biologischer Arten wurde ursprünglich durch das Laboratoire Informatique et Systématique der Université Pierre et Marie Curie erstellt. Die aktuelle Weiterentwicklung erfolgt durch Mitarbeiter des Service BioMedia an derselben Universität. Es handelt sich um eine Software zur Identifikation mithilfe des Computers (IAO, Identification Assistée par Ordinateur). Sie baut auf einer Datenbank mit Beschreibungen von Taxa auf; dabei wird die Sprache DELTA verwendet, jedoch in einer um spezielle Funktionalitäten erweiterten Variante. Die wesentlichen Funktionen des Systems sind Interaktive Bestimmung, Interaktive Erstellung von Bestimmungsschlüsseln, und Erstellung von Beschreibungen in natürlicher Sprache. ... [Information des Anbieters, übersetzt]
From the over 10.7 million taxonomic names that are part of the uBio system, approximately 3 million names were identified to have taxonomic authority information from the years 1750 to 2000. A tool was developed to explore the taxonomic data. A cursory and speculative analysis of the data reveals observable trends that may be attributable to significant events that are of both taxonomic (e.g., publishing of key monographs) and societal importance (e.g., world wars). The findings also help quantify the number of taxonomic descriptions that may be made available through digitization initiatives. (Source: "Exploring historical trends using taxonomic name metadata" (Indra Neil Sarkar, Ryan Schenk and Catherine N Norton 2008, in: BMC Evolutionary Biology 2008, 8:144 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-8-144) ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
With nearly 150,000 described species, flies (the insect order Diptera), are among the most diverse groups of living organisms on the planet. This diversity transcends simple species numbers and is demonstrated in the great breadth of morphological, ecological, and behavioral variation found in the group. Flies have a deep evolutionary history that extends back to the Permian Period, over 250 million years ago. The FLYTREE project is an international research collaboration funded by the US National Science Foundation, to elaborate and discover the details of fly relationships and diversity with the ultimate goal of providing a newly resolved phylogeny for this major branch of the Tree of Life. ... [Information of the supplier]
One of the first steps in discovering and understanding biodiversity is to identify the organisms around us. Traditionally, this has been done using paper-printed keys which enable us to correctly name an organism. Most of them, however, are "difficult" and hardly usable for educational purposes. KeyToNature is developing a range of new, much easier and paper-free identification tools, for use within schools and universities across Europe. They are available on a variety of platforms including laptops and mobile phones, some of them can be tailored to individual requirements. The project mobilizes 14 partners from 11 EU countries, including leading centres in biology, pedagogy, education, and information technology. KeyToNature mainly addresses the formal education systems of Europe, from teachers to pupils, from primary schools to universities. ... [Information of the supplier]
INOTAXA ('INtegrated Open TAXonomic Access') is a web workspace in which taxonomic descriptions, identification keys, catalogues, names, specimen data, images and other resources can be accessed simultaneously according to user-defined needs. It will allow access to data held in multiple servers, and will use a distributed data model. If, in the future, the various nomenclatural Codes permit web publication of new taxonomic names and acts, INOTAXA will be able to integrate single descriptions placed on servers worldwide, so long as they are indexed through a registry such as operated by GBIF. INOTAXA is built on an XML schema, taXMLit, that is interoperable with similar data from other sources (e.g., taxonomic names, concepts and specimens). INOTAXA is working with TDWG to ensure that standard schemas are used. These will allow external interoperability with GBIF and access to GBIF-mediated data. INOTAXA is also working with ZooBank, and has the potential to serve data in the format required to submit data directly. INOTAXA will provide seamless access from the content to other systems, including GBIF, TROPICOS and Flora Mesoamericana. In this pilot site, there are only limited data sources (Sharp & Champion 1889-1911, Biologia Centrali-Americana (BCA), Coleoptera Volume 4, Part 3 and Hamilton, 2007, Omolabus Jekel in north and central America (Coleoptera: Attelabidae)). These works overlap taxonomically and, in addition, specimen data and some images from the Natural History Museum (London) have been added for some taxa, including all of those which overlap. A gazetteer of insect localities from the BCA has also been included. This pilot has only part of the functionality planned for INOTAXA. Currently that means only simple search functionality, although screens have been 'mocked up' with real data to show the functionality planned for development by June 2008. Future plans will soon be available at www.inotaxa.org. ... [Information of the supplier]
A mostly scientific blog about short DNA sequences for species identification and discovery. I encourage your commentary. [Information of the supplier]
Includes, alphabetically and chronologically, the nomenclature of bacteria and the nomenclatural changes as cited in the Approved Lists of Bacterial Names or validly published in the International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology or in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. [Information of the supplier]
The Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life is planned to become a comprehensive catalogue of all known species of organisms on Earth. Rapid progress has been made recently and this, the ninth edition of the Annual Checklist, contains 1,160,711 species. Please note that this is probably just more than half of the world’s known species. This means that for many groups it continues to be deficient, and users will notice that many species are still missing from the Catalogue. The Annual Checklist is published each year as a fixed edition that can be cited and used as a common catalogue for comparative purposes by many organisations. Archived earlier editions are also available on the website. ... [Information of the supplier, modified]
