[Caledln-developers] WikiSpecies

[BC Capps]

Thanks for the info on ITIS, as it seems like a very good fit. Their  
list of partners includes numerous Federal agencies, as well as  
participants from Canada and Mexico.

http://www.itis.usda.gov/organ.html

I also guess that a crosswalk from ITIS to WikiSpecies would be  
possible in the future, assuming that both systems use fairly  
standard methods to identify species names.

BC Capps
Bay Area Open Space Council

On Apr 14, 2006, at 5:43 PM, Jim Quinn wrote:

> WikiSpecies is well-respected, as the leaders are active in the  
> general area of taxonomic informatics and a number of top museum  
> types contribute.  Having said that, for our purposes, the naming  
> authority that is far the most widely used in the U.S. for our  
> purposes is ITIS (http://www.itis.usda.gov/), which includes the  
> USDA Plants database.  It has a “Taxonomic Serial Number” that is  
> the required species reference in many government databases.  ITIS  
> has it critics, who argue among other things that many obscure taxa  
> have not yet been incorporated, some of their taxonomic preferences  
> are debatable (but taxonomists always quibble about such things),  
> and that they catalog names and synonyms rather than taxonomic  
> concepts (don’t ask!)  However, they are fine on vertebrates,  
> higher plants, and the vast majority of conspicuous marine  
> organisms in California, and all of the more authoritative thesauri  
> (e.g. AOU for birds) cross-reference with ITIS codes.  Over the  
> next few years, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility  
> (gbif.org) will probably have services that supplant ITIS for our  
> purposes, but they are closely coordinated, so it won’t cause  
> upgrade problems.  Other California reference materials I can think  
> of (WHR, NDDB, Nature Conservancy) have already been cross- 
> referenced (and with rare exceptions, follow the same usages), so  
> if someone insisted on using one of them as a name authority, it  
> would again be easy to integrate.  The only place our users might  
> not have a good source is in selected marine taxa.  (For example, I  
> think the polychaetes are still pretty incomplete.)
>
>
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> ---------
>
> James F. Quinn, Professor
> Department of Environmental Science and Policy
> University of California
> Davis, CA 95616-8576
>
> (530) 752-8027
> jfquinn at ucdavis.edu
> http://ice.ucdavis.edu/
>
> From: caledln-developers-bounces at lists.casil.ucdavis.edu  
> [mailto:caledln-developers-bounces at lists.casil.ucdavis.edu] On  
> Behalf Of BC Capps
> Sent: Friday, April 14, 2006 5:19 PM
> To: CalEDLN-developers at lists.casil.ucdavis.edu
> Subject: [Caledln-developers] WikiSpecies
>
>
>
> Here is the link to the WikiSpecies site that I mentioned at the  
> Developers meeting this afternoon. I don't know how scientifically- 
> rigorous their process is, but I thought it might have some value  
> as a naming authority for species information.
>
>
>
> http://species.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
>
>
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikispecies_FAQ
>
>
>
> BC
>
>
> ------------
> BC Capps
> Conservation Associate
> Bay Area Open Space Council
> 1259 McConnell Avenue
> Santa Rosa, CA, 95404
> 707-569-0515
> mailto:bc at openspacecouncil.org
> http://www.openspacecouncil.org/
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Caledln-developers mailing list
> Caledln-developers at lists.casil.ucdavis.edu
> http://lists.casil.ucdavis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/caledln- 
> developers


------------
BC Capps
Conservation Associate
Bay Area Open Space Council
1259 McConnell Avenue
Santa Rosa, CA, 95404
707-569-0515
mailto:bc at openspacecouncil.org
http://www.openspacecouncil.org/


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.casil.ucdavis.edu/pipermail/caledln-developers/attachments/20060418/a2c46429/attachment.htm