Catalogue of Life

Last updated

The Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life
Logo for Catalogue of Life.svg
Type of site
Taxonomic catalogue
Available inEnglish
URL www.catalogueoflife.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationNot required
LaunchedJune 2001;22 years ago (2001-06)
Current statusActive

The Catalogue of Life is an online database that provides an index of known species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms. It was created in 2001 as a partnership between the global Species 2000 and the American Integrated Taxonomic Information System. The Catalogue is used by research scientists, citizen scientists, educators, and policy makers. [1] The Catalogue is also used by the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the Barcode of Life Data System, Encyclopedia of Life , and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. [2] The Catalogue currently compiles data from 165 peer-reviewed taxonomic databases that are maintained by specialist institutions around the world. As of September 2022, the COL Checklist lists 2,067,951 [3] of the world's 2.2m extant species known to taxonomists on the planet at present time.

Contents

Structure

The Catalogue of Life employs a simple data structure to provide information on synonymy, grouping within a taxonomic hierarchy, common names, distribution and ecological environment. [4] It provides a dynamic edition, [5] which is updated monthly (and in which data can change without tracking of those changes) and an Annual Checklist, [6] which provides a dated, verifiable reference for the usage of names and associated data. Development of the Catalogue of Life was funded through the Species 2000 europa (EuroCat), [7] 4d4Life, [8] i4Life [9] projects in 2003–2013, and later by the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, the Netherlands and Species Files group at Illinois Natural History Survey in Champaign-Urbana.

Current people governing the CoL, [10] contributors, [11] and other relevant information which changes over time, are listed on the CoL Web site.

Usage

Much of the use of the Catalogue is to provide a backbone taxonomy for other global data portals and biological collections. Through the i4Life project, it has formal partnerships with Global Biodiversity Information Facility, European Nucleotide Archive, Encyclopedia of Life, European Consortium for the Barcode of Life, IUCN Red List, and Life Watch. The public interface includes both search and browse functions as well as offering multi-lingual services. [2]

The Catalogue listed 300,000 species by 2003, 500,000 species by 2005, and over 800,000 species by 2006. [12] As of 2019, the Catalogue listed 1.9 million extant and extinct species. [13] There are an estimated 14 million mainly unpublished species; however, this number is uncertain as there is a lack of data on the possible number of undescribed insects, nematodes, bacteria, fungi and many others. [14]

Catalogue of Life Plus

In 2015, an expert panel presented a consensus hierarchical classification of life [15] which included some sectors not yet represented in the published Catalogue. In the same year, the Catalogue of Life, Barcode of Life Data System, Biodiversity Heritage Library, Encyclopedia of Life, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) met to consider building a single shared authoritative nomenclature and taxonomic foundation "Catalogue of Life Plus" that could be used to order and connect biodiversity data, including content not yet in CoL but available via other sources, to serve both the users of the present Catalogue and users of extended taxonomic content (such as GBIF) using a common infrastructure. COL+ will develop a clearinghouse covering scientific names across all life, provide a single taxonomic view, and provide an avenue for feedback from content authorities. [2] The CoL is developing in conjunction with the Global Species List Working Group to avoid replication and work towards an authoritative global list of species.

See also

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Integrated Taxonomic Information System</span> Authoritative taxonomic information on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Biodiversity Information Facility</span> Aggregator of scientific data on biodiversity; data portal

The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the world; GBIF's information architecture makes these data accessible and searchable through a single portal. Data available through the GBIF portal are primarily distribution data on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes for the world, and scientific names data.

Biodiversity informatics is the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information, such as taxonomy, biogeography or ecology. It is defined as the application of Information technology technologies to management, algorithmic exploration, analysis and interpretation of primary data regarding life, particularly at the species level organization. Modern computer techniques can yield new ways to view and analyze existing information, as well as predict future situations. Biodiversity informatics is a term that was only coined around 1992 but with rapidly increasing data sets has become useful in numerous studies and applications, such as the construction of taxonomic databases or geographic information systems. Biodiversity informatics contrasts with "bioinformatics", which is often used synonymously with the computerized handling of data in the specialized area of molecular biology.

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<i>Diachrysia balluca</i>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pygmy brown-toothed shrew</span> Species of mammal

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Petrocodon is a diverse genus of the family Gesneriaceae found in Southern China. Petrocodon formerly had few species, but recent genetic analysis has refined our understanding of the genus. Calcareoboea, Paralagarosolen, Dolicholoma and Tengia monotypic genera have been transferred to Petrocodon, as well as some Didymocarpus and Lagarosolen species.

<i>Nemopistha hennini</i> Species of Neuroptera

Nemopistha hennini is a Neuropteran insect species described by Luisa Eugenia Navas in 1911, which is found in the Congo Basin. N. hennini is part of the genus Nemopistha and the family Nemopteridae. No subspecies are listed in the Catalog of Life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rheiformes</span> Order of birds

Rheiformes is an order that contains the family Rheidae (rheas). It is in the infraclass Paleognathae, which contains all ratites. Extant members are found in South America. While the IOC World Bird List and the Clements Checklist categorise Rheiformes as its own order, the BirdLife Data Zone includes rheas, along with ostriches, tinamous, cassowaries, emu, and kiwis, in the order Struthioniformes. Of the two extant species of rheas recognized by the IUCN Red List, as of 2022, Rhea americana is listed as near threatened, while Rhea pennata is listed as least concern. From 2014 to 2022, the IUCN recognised Rhea tarapacensis as a separate species, and listed it as near threatened in its last assessment in 2020; in 2022, it was again recognised as a subspecies of R. pennata.

The little Indochinese field rat is a common long-tailed rodent of the rat genus Rattus, in the family Muridae. It is mostly found in Southeast Asia, specifically concentrated in northern and central Thailand and the Vientiane Plain in northwestern Laos.

References

  1. Harmon, Joanie (2 December 2016). "Animal, vegetable, data: Exploring the online 'Catalogue of Life'". UCLA News Room. Archived from the original on 24 June 2018. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 Bánki, Olaf; Döring, Markus; Holleman, Ayco; Addink, Wouter (2018). "Catalogue of Life Plus: Innovating the CoL systems as a foundation for a clearinghouse for names and taxonomy". Biodiversity Information Science and Standards. 2: e26922. doi: 10.3897/biss.2.26922 .
  3. "COL". Archived from the original on 14 June 2021. Retrieved 12 June 2021.
  4. "About the Catalogue of Life: 2018 Annual Checklist". Catalogue of Life. Species 2000. Archived from the original on 30 May 2018. Retrieved 10 May 2018.
  5. "Catalogue of Life – 30th October 2017 : Search all names". catalogueoflife.org. Archived from the original on 16 May 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
  6. "Catalogue of Life – 2017 Annual Checklist : Search all names". catalogueoflife.org. Archived from the original on 27 April 2007. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  7. "Welcome to Species 2000 europa". European Catalogue of Life Project. 3 February 2008. Archived from the original on 3 February 2008.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  8. Orvill. "Home – 4D4Life". Archived from the original on 13 October 2016.
  9. "i4life: Indexing For Life". i4life.eu. Archived from the original on 13 June 2013. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
  10. "COL Governance". CoL. 18 July 2023. Updated as required.
  11. "The COL contributors". CoL. July 2023. Updated as required.
  12. Cachuela-Palacio, Monalisa (2006). "Towards an index of all known species: The Catalogue of Life, its rationale, design and use". Integrative Zoology. 1 (1): 18–21. doi: 10.1111/j.1749-4877.2006.00007.x . PMID   21395986.
  13. "Species estimates". Catalogue of Life. Species 2000. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 7 February 2019.
  14. United Nations Environment Programme (2002). Global Environment Outlook 3: Past, Present and Future Perspectives. EarthScan Publications, London. p 120
  15. Ruggiero, Michael A; Gordon, Dennis P; Orrell, Thomas M; Bailly, Nicolas; Bourgoin, Thierry; Brusca, Richard C; Cavalier-Smith, Thomas; Guiry, Michael D; Kirk, Paul M (2015). "A Higher Level Classification of All Living Organisms". PLOS ONE. 10 (4): e0119248. Bibcode:2015PLoSO..1019248R. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0119248 . PMC   4418965 . PMID   25923521.

Further reading