DTN taxon lists concept and architecture
Introduction: DTN taxon lists concept and architecture
- The IBF project/ DiversityMobile (smartphone app, app for Tablet PCs), the German Barcode of Life (=GBOL) project as well as many other biodiversity research projects depend on national/ regional species checklists/ taxon reference lists.
- Species checklists/ taxon reference lists are essential as underlying standard lists (backbones) for web presentation services and (search and edit) interfaces (e. g. as scroll lists). They are needed as dynamic services (database views and exports, machine-readable web services) and as non-dynamic database exports in various schemas and formats for external local database applications.
- Such lists as managed by DiversityTaxonNames (=DTN) databases in a Diversity Workbench (= DWB) environment are called DTN taxon lists.
- DTN taxon lists might be created (a) by direct import of taxon names from tab separated list files in a DWB environment, (b) by adding the relevant list information to nomenclators and species/ taxon databases already available as project in a DTN database of any DWB environment (e. g. GBIFnomenmyx, LIASnames, MELnames, MSWnames in the DWB environment of the SNSB, and UBTgallnames in the open TNT environment) and in future (c) by using the freely available (global) name thesauri e. g. via SOAP web services or REST web services of Catalogue of Life (CoL), of Species File Software (SFS), Fauna Europaea, IndexFungorum, Global Names Initiative or of EU BON Unified Taxonomic Information Service (UTIS) etc. to create a new DTN taxon list in a DTN database - [functionality "c" not yet implemented in DTN client!].
- The existing DTN taxon lists in the context of BFL, DGfM, IBF, LIAS and GBOL are built by either the method (a) or (b). They rely on expert taxonomists (= list curators) who create expert lists based on their own experience and/ or collect information from published resources as national checklists and taxonomic thesauri as the "Global Species Databases" from the Catalogue of Life initiative (GSDs) and Fauna Europaea.
- The content of DTN taxon lists has to be continuously curated and updated. The list curators will be responsible for managing that data preferably by using the DTN .Net clients on their desktops or periodical import routines (attention: identifiers!).
- Additions and corrections are welcome and might be sent to the respective list curators or to the persons responsible for the common taxonomy of major initiatives or projects like LIAS and GBOL.
DTN taxon lists open and freely accessible
- To document the content of the lists under creative common license which are currently used in the IBF, LIAS and GBOL context and enlarge the acceptance of those lists within the project communities they are managed by DTN installations in the DWB virtual server environment "Taxon Names and Term = TNT".
- Periodically the data will be exported and presented for open and free download as csv, xls, xml files (export wizard under development). The files will be offered via the GBOL portal, the GBIF-D portal, the DiversityMobile Wiki and the GFBio portal.
- There will be a full REST web service for machine-machine communication and a single access search interface for taxon names, vernacular names and identifiers. Results? Classification upwards? Hierarchy?
- The DTN taxon lists do not compete against commented reference checklists/ red lists etc., published e. g. by the nature conservation agencies, like the German Bundesamt für Naturschutz. Those are important legal documents and copyrighted printed publications. The DTN taxon lists, in contrast, are digital data sets managed in relational database systems with the goal to dynamically create non-commented outputs, mainly for other software tools and research purposes. They do not have a binding legal role, but might manage and link certain information relevant for conservation agencies.
- The DTN taxon lists do not compete against international efforts to create standard taxonomy thesauri and services but support these initiatives by the creating of new content curated by local experts and a flexible user-friendly and taxon-names-curator-driven service. The DTN taxon lists allow researchers to manage and curate their own taxon names backbones in the long hand, link them to international sources and use them as taxon backbone for research as well as citizen science projects.
DTN databases in the DWB virtual server environment "TNT"
Concept:
- There are DTN databases for each major organism group in the DWB virtual server environment "Taxon Names and Terms (=TNT)".
- Each database has name projects with DTN taxon lists.
- Expert taxonomists and list curators will have access on project level to edit names data.
- The DTN taxon lists are accessible for web applications, e. g. through the DWB web editor for GBOL.
DiversityTaxonNames_Animalia [Attention!! includes all groups of Animalia exclusive Insecta and Vertebrata]
Project: GBOLnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
DiversityTaxonNames_Insecta
Project: GBOLnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
Project: IBFnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
DiversityTaxonNames_Vertebrata
Project: GBOLnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
Project: FREDIEnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
DiversityTaxonNames_Fungi
Project: DGfMnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
Project: GBOLnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
<br\> The following two ??? TESTE three *** projects with their lists will to be in parts replicated from the SNSB server machine to the TNT server in near future:
Project: LIASnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
Project: GBIFnomenmyx (= SNSBnames on TNT) with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): table.
DiversityTaxonNames_Plants
Project: BFLnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
Project: GBOLnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
DiversityTaxonNames_TaxaVaria
Project: UBTgallnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.
Project: SMNSnames with DTN taxon lists (=TaxRefLists): see table.