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e-Science

Sites for all species

CATE: Creating a Taxonomic e-Science

Taxonomy is about the description and identification of all species, their geographical distribution and their relationships.

There is a growing and increasingly urgent demand for detailed and reliable taxonomic information on species to increase knowledge of ecosystem function and to understand the consequences of losing biodiversity.

But achieving a standard classification of plants, animals and other organisms has been greatly hampered by fragmented information scattered across the globe in myriad institutions and literature stretching back hundreds of years.

But now the internet is revolutionising taxonomy, offering the prospect of something radically new: an agreed classification of organisms which continually improves as research and discoveries advance.

The CATE project is starting this process by publishing online full revisionary taxonomies of two groups: the hawkmoths (insects) and the aroids (flowering plants).

It will enable wiki-style continuous updating along with community peer-review. The online approach allows closer collaboration between taxonomic experts, both professional and amateur.