A pragmatic approach to concept-based annotation of scientific names in biodiversity and environmental research data

Abstract

With the increasing amount of interdisciplinary and international networks dedicated to long-term persistence and interoperability of research data, the demand for semantic linking of environmental research data has grown. Data related to organisms frequently inherit a major obstacle. Organisms often are ambiguously identified by using only the scientific name, which is not a precise identifier for the taxonomic concept that is implicitly being used. Here we describe a robust taxon concept definition that allows deducing a set of rules for semi-automatically managing concepts. These rules define specific taxonomic operations as transition points at which new taxon concepts emerge from former concepts. Implemented into the business logic of taxon management systems, these rules can assure the stability of taxon concepts so that environmental data sets can be reliably annotated with the corresponding persistent identifier. Our approach limits the risk that referenced taxon concepts are modified unnoticed.