Web-based taxonomy: Difference between revisions

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'''Web-based taxonomy''' is the effort by [[taxonomy|taxonomists]] to use the [[World Wide Web]] to create [[unitary taxonomies]].

Web Taxonomy is a unified web platform that uses specified tools defined by a taxonomic working group in order to create unitary taxonomies (see Godfray, 2002; see also http://www.cate-project.org/unitary_taxonomies.html). The platform is owned and maintained by a taxonomic working group (e.g. Orthoptera Species Files [http://140.247.119.145/Orthoptera/]), which is governed by a editor or an editorial board. Web taxonomic platforms tend to be maintained by a limited number of institutions or organizations (e.g. CATE [http://www.cate-project.org/index.html]).

In his 2002 paper on the subject<ref>[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6884/full/417017a.html Godfray, H.C.J (2002). Challenges for taxonomy. ''Nature'' 417: 17-19]</ref>, [[H. Charles J. Godfray]] called for the creation of Web-based organisations to collect all the accumulated literature on a taxonomic group into a centralized knowledge base and make this data available through the Web as a consensus taxonomy or [[unitary taxonomy]], so that it can be examined and revised. Such a platform would be owned and maintained by a taxonomic working group, governed by a editor or an editorial board.

The notion of Web-based consensus taxonomies remains controversial because, as Australian researchers Kevin Thiele and David Yeates pointed out<ref>[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v419/n6905/full/419337a.html Tension arises from duality at the heart of taxonomy. "Nature" 419, 337 (26 September 2002)]</ref>, taxonomic names are not fixed but hypotheses, and therefore constantly changing.

== LiteratureReferences ==

<references />

==External links==

*[http://www.catalogueoflife.org Catalogue of Life]

*[http://www.gbif.org Global Biodiversity Information Facility]

*[http://www.cate-project.org/ CATE Project]

[[Category:Scientific classification]]

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[[Category:World Wide Web]]

Godfray, H.C.J (2002). Challenges for taxonomy. ''Nature'' 417: 17-19[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v417/n6884/full/417017a.html].

== See also ==

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Taxonomy[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy]

Cybertaxonomy[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cybertaxonomy]