In biology, taxonomy is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa and these groups are given a taxonomic rank; groups of a given rank can be aggregated to form a more inclusive group of higher rank, thus creating a taxonomic hierarchy. The principal ranks in modern use are domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. The Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus is regarded as the founder of the current system of taxonomy, as he developed a ranked system known as Linnaean taxonomy for categorizing organisms and binominal nomenclature for naming organisms.
Johann Friedrich Gmelin was a German naturalist, botanist, entomologist, herpetologist, and malacologist.
The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is an American partnership of federal agencies designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. ITIS was originally formed in 1996 as an interagency group within the US federal government, involving several US federal agencies, and has now become an international body, with Canadian and Mexican government agencies participating. The database draws from a large community of taxonomic experts. Primary content staff are housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and IT services are provided by a US Geological Survey facility in Denver. The primary focus of ITIS is North American species, but many biological groups exist worldwide and ITIS collaborates with other agencies to increase its global coverage.
Sir Albert Charles Seward FRS was a British botanist and geologist.
Charles Edwin Bessey was an American botanist.
Biodiversity informatics is the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information, such as taxonomy, biogeography or ecology. 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.
Vernon Hilton Heywood is a British biologist. His specializations are medicinal and aromatic plants, and the conservation of wild relatives of plants.
A taxonomic database is a database created to hold information on biological taxa – for example groups of organisms organized by species name or other taxonomic identifier – for efficient data management and information retrieval. Taxonomic databases are routinely used for the automated construction of biological checklists such as floras and faunas, both for print publication and online; to underpin the operation of web-based species information systems; as a part of biological collection management ; as well as providing, in some cases, the taxon management component of broader science or biology information systems. They are also a fundamental contribution to the discipline of biodiversity informatics.
A Global Species Database (GSD) is a digital catalog of organisms often defined around a conservation purpose for the organisms of interest. GSDs attempt to be globally inclusive of species within their inclusion parameters versus local species databases. GSDs have a defined purpose, SPECIESDAB is a GSD for economically valuable fish species, while FishBase focuses on fin fish regardless of their human potential for exploitation. Attempts have been made to create GSDs for extinct species such as trilobites. A GSD can be broad in taxonomic scope, such as AlgaeBase comprehensively including algae and seagrasses from the entire planet, or narrow such as International Legume Database & Information Service, a GSD for members of a single plant family, the Fabaceae.
Alastair Culham is an English botanist. He is a member of the staff of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading and Curator of the University of Reading Herbarium (RNG). He specialises in plant taxonomy, biosystematics and applications of techniques from molecular biology, phytogeography and phylogenetics. He focuses on broad-based research in biodiversity and taxonomy.
Species 2000 is a federation of database organizations around the world that compiles the Catalogue of Life, a comprehensive checklist of the world's species, in partnership with the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS). The creation of Species 2000 was initiated by Frank Bisby and colleagues at the University of Reading in the UK in 1997 and the Catalogue of Life was first published in 2001. While administrators and member organizations of Species 2000 are located around the world, the secretariat is located at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, Netherlands.
Catalog of Fishes is a comprehensive on-line database and reference work on the scientific names of fish species and genera. It is global in its scope and is hosted by the California Academy of Sciences. It has been compiled and is continuously updated by the curator emeritus of the CAS fish collection, William Eschmeyer.
Piliostigma malabaricum is a small tree species in the family Fabaceae. It was previously placed in the genus Bauhinia, but names changed with reorganisation of the subfamily Cercidoideae and the tribe Bauhinieae.
Sebsebe Demissew is a Professor of Plant Systematics and Biodiversity at Addis Ababa University and Executive Director of the Gullele Botanic Garden in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Abraeomorphus minutissimus is a species of beetle first described by Edmund Reitter in 1884. No subspecies are listed in Catalogue of Life.
The Interim Register of Marine and Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG) is a taxonomic database which attempts to cover published genus names for all domains of life from 1758 in zoology up to the present, arranged in a single, internally consistent taxonomic hierarchy, for the benefit of Biodiversity Informatics initiatives plus general users of biodiversity (taxonomic) information. In addition to containing over 490,000 published genus name instances as at March 2020, the database holds over 1.7 million species names, although this component of the data is not maintained in as current or complete state as the genus-level holdings. IRMNG can be queried online for access to the latest version of the dataset and is also made available as periodic snapshots or data dumps for import/upload into other systems as desired.
Pterostichus obesulus is a species of beetle first discovered in 1873. No sub-species are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
Ablaberoides tardus are a species of beetles first discovered by Louis Albert Péringuey in 1904. No subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.
Ablaberoides crassus is a species of beetles first discovered by Olof Immanuel von Fåhraeus in 1857. No sub-species are listed at the Catalogue of Life.
Richard Kenneth "Dick" Brummitt was a British botanist.
