TY - JOUR
T1 - Principles for creating a single authoritative list of the world's species
AU - Garnett, Stephen T.
AU - Christidis, Les
AU - Conix, Stijn
AU - Costello, Mark J.
AU - Zachos, Frank E.
AU - Bánki, Olaf S.
AU - Bao, Yiming
AU - Barik, Saroj K.
AU - Buckeridge, John S.
AU - Hobern, Donald
AU - Lien, Aaron
AU - Montgomery, Narelle
AU - Nikolaeva, Svetlana
AU - Pyle, Richard L.
AU - Thomson, Scott A.
AU - van Dijk, Peter Paul
AU - Whalen, Anthony
AU - Zhang, Zhi Qiang
AU - Thiele, Kevin R.
N1 - Funding Information:
Authors SG, LC, SC, MC, KT, FZ received funding from the International Union for Biological Sciences (http://www.iubs.org) to run a workshop reviewing the principles described in the paper as part of the IUBS programme "Governance of Global Taxonomic Lists." SC's involvement was funded by the Flemish Research Council Grant 3H200026. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. All other authors received no specific funding for this work. The authors would like to thank all those in the broader taxonomic community who have been contributing so constructively to this debate. They are also grateful for the support of Isabel Ely and Roanne Ramsey of Charles Darwin University (CDU) and Nathalie Fomproix of the IUBS in running the workshop to discuss these principles. The workshop received funding from CDU and from the IUBS as part of the IUBS Programme 'Governance of Global Taxonomic Lists'. SC's involvement was funded by Flemish Research Council Grant 3H200026.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2020 Garnett et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2020/7
Y1 - 2020/7
N2 - Lists of species underpin many fields of human endeavour, but there are currently no universally accepted principles for deciding which biological species should be accepted when there are alternative taxonomic treatments (and, by extension, which scientific names should be applied to those species). As improvements in information technology make it easier to communicate, access, and aggregate biodiversity information, there is a need for a framework that helps taxonomists and the users of taxonomy decide which taxa and names should be used by society whilst continuing to encourage taxonomic research that leads to new species discoveries, new knowledge of species relationships, and the refinement of existing species concepts. Here, we present 10 principles that can underpin such a governance framework, namely (i) the species list must be based on science and free from nontaxonomic considerations and interference, (ii) governance of the species list must aim for community support and use, (iii) all decisions about list composition must be transparent, (iv) the governance of validated lists of species is separate from the governance of the names of taxa, (v) governance of lists of accepted species must not constrain academic freedom, (vi) the set of criteria considered sufficient to recognise species boundaries may appropriately vary between different taxonomic groups but should be consistent when possible, (vii) a global list must balance conflicting needs for currency and stability by having archived versions, (viii) contributors need appropriate recognition, (ix) list content should be traceable, and (x) a global listing process needs both to encompass global diversity and to accommodate local knowledge of that diversity. We conclude by outlining issues that must be resolved if such a system of taxonomic list governance and a unified list of accepted scientific names generated are to be universally adopted.
AB - Lists of species underpin many fields of human endeavour, but there are currently no universally accepted principles for deciding which biological species should be accepted when there are alternative taxonomic treatments (and, by extension, which scientific names should be applied to those species). As improvements in information technology make it easier to communicate, access, and aggregate biodiversity information, there is a need for a framework that helps taxonomists and the users of taxonomy decide which taxa and names should be used by society whilst continuing to encourage taxonomic research that leads to new species discoveries, new knowledge of species relationships, and the refinement of existing species concepts. Here, we present 10 principles that can underpin such a governance framework, namely (i) the species list must be based on science and free from nontaxonomic considerations and interference, (ii) governance of the species list must aim for community support and use, (iii) all decisions about list composition must be transparent, (iv) the governance of validated lists of species is separate from the governance of the names of taxa, (v) governance of lists of accepted species must not constrain academic freedom, (vi) the set of criteria considered sufficient to recognise species boundaries may appropriately vary between different taxonomic groups but should be consistent when possible, (vii) a global list must balance conflicting needs for currency and stability by having archived versions, (viii) contributors need appropriate recognition, (ix) list content should be traceable, and (x) a global listing process needs both to encompass global diversity and to accommodate local knowledge of that diversity. We conclude by outlining issues that must be resolved if such a system of taxonomic list governance and a unified list of accepted scientific names generated are to be universally adopted.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000736
DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000736
M3 - Review article
C2 - 32634138
AN - SCOPUS:85087729904
VL - 18
JO - PLoS Biology
JF - PLoS Biology
SN - 1544-9173
IS - 7
M1 - 3000736
ER -