The Knowledge About (Digital) Specimens is in the Published Literature
| Main Authors: | Agosti, Donat, Guidoti, Marcus, Dikow, Torsten, Miller, Jeremy A. |
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| Format: | info Proceeding Journal |
| Terbitan: |
, 2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
https://zenodo.org/record/4263650 |
Daftar Isi:
- One of the main pillars of natural history are the libraries of taxonomic publications. These publications disseminate scientific knowledge derived from the observation and analysis of specimens. Specimens cited in taxonomic treatments may be linked to other treatments where they are also cited, or to collections databases where specimens are archived, and groups of specimens cited together in treatments contribute to taxonomic concepts including defining characteristics and distribution. Thus, digitization of specimens and literature followed by providing open-access to all resources allow for a seamless network of links moving from a specimen to its inclusion in publications. Plazi is a Swiss-based international NGO that promotes and provides access to data from taxonomic publications. A total of 375,000 publications including 275,000 scientific illustrations, and 400,000 material citations are now open, findable, accessible, citable and re-usable. Data on 45,000 species, primarily of insects, are present in the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) only because of mobilization from literature sources.The data are accessible through Plazi, Biolitrepo, Ocellus (figure search application, Synospecies (taxonomic name search application), OpenBiodiv (for Linked open data application) or GBIF. A total of 232 scientific publications included data about materials cited in species treatments, and various publications illustrate the contribution of taxonomic treatments towards building a taxonomic cyber catalogue providing links to all of the referenced data. The data conversion is based on a daily operation processing PDF-based publications of ongoing publications, and a nibbling at the huge, estimated 500M pages of legacy biodiversity publications including the entire catalogue of life that is partially accessible through the Biodiversity Heritage Library and Internet Archive and PDF collections provided by taxonomic specialists. However, publications, such as those championed by Pensoft provide all the necessary means to directly import the data. Such a workflow is recommended for the future.