Catalogue of Life

Catalogue of Life
Name	Catalogue of Life

Catalogue of Life is a comprehensive online index aiming to enumerate the world's known species of animals, plants, fungi, and microorganisms. It aggregates taxonomic checklists contributed by international institutions and expert networks to provide a standardized taxonomic backbone for biodiversity research, conservation, and policy. The project interacts with global initiatives and organizations to support species discovery, nomenclatural stability, and interoperability of biological data.

History

The Catalogue of Life initiative emerged from collaborations among institutions such as the Species 2000, the Integrated Taxonomic Information System, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the World Register of Marine Species, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Early meetings involved partners from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Natural History Museum, London, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of Natural History, Leiden. Funding and technical support historically involved agencies like the European Commission, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the Global Environment Facility. Over successive editions the project integrated checklists from specialist organizations including the International Plant Names Index, the FishBase, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List contributors, reflecting cooperation among curators from the Botanical Society of Britain and Ireland, the American Society of Mammalogists, and the Entomological Society of America.

Scope and Content

The Catalogue covers taxonomic names, authorships, synonymies, and higher-level classification across kingdoms represented by datasets from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Natural History Museum, London, the French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), the Smithsonian Institution, and regional museums such as the South African National Biodiversity Institute. Content includes entries drawn from discipline-specific databases like FishBase for ichthyology, the International Ornithologists' Union lists for ornithology, the World Register of Marine Species for marine taxa, and the MycoBank repository for mycology. The catalogue aims to provide curated taxonomic backbones used by initiatives such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and the Convention on Biological Diversity reporting.

Data Sources and Taxonomic Backbone

Primary data providers include specialist registries: the International Plant Names Index, the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, the World Spider Catalog, the Catalogue of Life Checklist, the Global Lepidoptera Names Index, and the IUCN Red List contributor networks. Expert teams from institutions such as the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the Natural History Museum, London, the Smithsonian Institution, the Australian Biological Resources Study, and the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin curate source checklists. The project's taxonomic backbone reconciles conflicting nomenclature using rules from the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, and guidance from bodies like the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.

Technical Infrastructure and Access

The Catalogue leverages technical platforms developed in collaboration with partners such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, the Plazi, the Biodiversity Heritage Library, and the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) community. Data delivery mechanisms include bulk downloads, web services, and an application programming interface used by projects including the Encyclopedia of Life, the Barcode of Life Data Systems, the iNaturalist platform, and the eBird project. Software and integration tools have been developed alongside institutions like the Open Data Institute, the European Bioinformatics Institute, and the California Academy of Sciences, enabling use in workflows for publishers such as the Royal Society and repositories like the Dryad Digital Repository.

Governance and Funding

Governance involves partnerships among organizations including Species 2000, the Catalogue of Life Partnership, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and leading museums such as the Natural History Museum, London and the Smithsonian Institution. Funding streams have included grants from the European Commission, philanthropic support from foundations like the Arcadia Fund, and project-based contributions from national science agencies including the National Science Foundation and the Australian Research Council. Advisory input has been provided by taxonomic societies such as the International Union of Biological Sciences and the International Association for Plant Taxonomy.

Applications and Use Cases

Users include researchers at the Smithsonian Institution, conservationists working with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, policymakers involved in the Convention on Biological Diversity, and educators at institutions such as the University of Oxford and the Harvard University Herbaria. The Catalogue underpins biodiversity informatics platforms like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, supports ecological meta-analyses published in journals like Nature and Science, and assists monitoring programs coordinated by the United Nations Environment Programme. Applied uses extend to environmental consulting firms, national red-listing exercises by agencies like the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and data integration for initiatives such as the Group on Earth Observations.

Criticisms and Limitations

Critiques have come from taxonomists at institutions such as the Natural History Museum, London, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin regarding completeness, temporal lag in updates, and treatment of contentious synonymies. Limitations cited by researchers publishing in outlets like PNAS and PLoS Biology include uneven geographic and taxonomic coverage, dependency on the quality of source checklists such as FishBase and regional faunal inventories, and challenges in harmonizing competing nomenclatural opinions endorsed by bodies like the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. Ongoing reforms engage partners including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and the Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) community to address provenance, versioning, and community curation.

Category:Biodiversity databases