Recent activities of the Checklist Committee (CLC)

A Task Group of the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA).

Recent activities of the Checklist Committee (CLC) will be reported here periodically.


Following is a somewhat abbreviated account of the Checklist Committee meeting held in Mexico City October 1998. Despite the limited extra funding currently available, we are implementing the procedure proposed in Madrid in 1995, thanks to the continuing goodwill of the various member institutions and individuals. The provisional Checklist now contains several regional datasets and family datasets, including two sets not available elsewhere on the Web: those for Med-Checklist and for the former USSR. We continue to input other datasets while seeking more funding for IOPI's long-term goal of a fully relational, distributed database system that can be edited on-line by botanical specialists.

Karen Wilson
Convener of Checklist Committee
karen@rbgsyd.gov.au
8 February 1999


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Global Plant Checklist Committee Meeting

CONABIO, Mexico City - 24 October 1998
Minutes


Members present:
Walter Berendsohn, Dick Brummitt, Patricia Dávila, John McNeill, Nancy Morin, Scott Peterson, Doug Stevens, Karen Wilson (convener)
Visitors: Laura Arriaga, Enrique Forero, Werner Greuter, Pat Holmgren (p.m.), Patricia Koleff, Philippe Morat, Victoria Sosa, Gary Waggoner
Apologies: Frank Bisby, Charlotte Gyllenhaal, Richard Pankhurst


1 Minutes from June 5 meeting in Reading, and matters arising not listed below.
Demonstration project (at Southampton) testing merging procedures - Richard White sent his apologies for not having finished his final report on this - Walter to discuss to him.

LITCHI project in Cardiff, Southampton and Reading (major project on ways to automatically merge non-conflicting datasets) - John has sent letter formally authorising the project to use the IOPI Checklist dataset to test the software it develops. Walter emphasised the need for us to add as much data as possible in the next year to the GPC to fully test this software.


2 Global Plant Checklist (GPC)

2.1 Activities since last meeting
Karen reported on activities since the last CLC meeting in Reading. She has partly updated the list of existing database projects (distributed at meeting) but has not had time to contact any more of them, her time over the intervening months having been taken up mostly by preparations for the Monocots II conference held in late September in Sydney.
She has represented the Checklist project at two Species 2000 Project Management Team meetings (in Reading in June, and in Santa Barbara in October) - Scott Peterson and Frank Bisby are also members of that team.
She attended a Bioinformatics conference in Canberra in July, organised by Ebbe Nielsen to promote the proposed OECD GBIF initiative, and in September a talk on the Plant Name Project by Jim Croft. The nomenclator product of the PNP (Kew, Harvard and Canberra) is now known as the International Plant Name Index (IPNI), and a prototype will be shown at the IBC next August in St Louis. Jim assured Karen that PNP would contribute to the GPC and that the software would be available to IOPI or any other project that could use it. Walter has discussed the project with those involved; it is novel in that it has a truly distributed approach (amongst the three centres, but extendable to more); it includes observations on orthography, etc.

Walter reported on ISC activities. Over the past year, Richard Pankhurst has edited the Czerepanov dataset for the former USSR, and Walter has put it into the Checklist. This is the first dataset that is uniquely available on the Web via the GPC. Magnoliaceae is in the Checklist; it includes the TDWG standard geographic codes. Walter is to add the codes for Casuarinaceae, which Karen had prepared. Walter has been offered the Slovak Flora dataset by Marhold; it was agreed that we would accept this offer. The Conspectus Fl. Orientalis is in 8 vols, not computerised, but they are willing to input the data - they need a letter from IOPI re use in the Checklist - Karen to follow up. As Walter reported, the GPC is already proving useful to people, despite its continuing lack of completeness.

A significant development in Europe is the amalgamation of the Flora Europaea and Med Checklist database projects as Euro+Med Plantbase. It has no funding yet but may get funding under the EU 5
th Framework. It will use the same structure as the present GPC but with more fields.

Another European project that is already using the full IOPI data model is on mosses of Germany, based in Göttingen; Walter is in its advisory group. It is producing an input program that we might use. He has put up a fully edited example (the genus Warnstorfia) from this project in the GPC.

As arranged, the ISC met in Jerusalem in August (Walter, Richard P. and Richard White). They defined the requirements for an input /editing program, especially how users would input relationships between potential taxa. These definitions will be used to evaluate the feasibility of adapting existing input workbench software (e.g. that of PLANTS and BIOTICA of CONABIO) for the GPC, and they will also be given to the German moss project.

Walter has continued to commit much time in Berlin to the GPC. He is still working on Malpighiaceae with Bill Anderson, who has been most cooperative. Importing datasets is time-consuming and he seeks assistance from data custodians, especially those at this meeting and on this committee, to take on some of the conversion tasks (via their programmers) at their home institution before sending him the data to incorporate in the Checklist. The slowest step is linking the names in the datasets to those in the Kew list of families and genera that we are using as our default standard for linking data in the GPC. Dick reported that Kew is updating this list, which should be completed next year. It was agreed that we should adopt the updated list when available.

The OECD Bioinformatics group is proposing the GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility), which aims to facilitate access to biodiversity data. It is proposed that its Electronic Catalog of Names of Known Organisms be provided through Species 2000 (and therefore the GPC would be involved, too). Membership of the GBIF group will be open to both OECD and non-OECD nations. Funding will come from national sources, but tagged as international GBIF projects. Walter expects that significant funding will be available soon in Germany for such projects. Gary Waggoner noted that the recent US Presidential Committee report Teeming with life recommends that various biodiversity projects in the USA be funded in 2000. [URL for this report is: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/OSTP/html/OSTP_Home.html/] Most current US funding for checklist-related activities has gone to software development, but the NSF has funded Dick Moe to digitise Paul Silva's card index to algae. Gary urged IOPI to promote our model and standards to funding agencies, because of the competing models and standards around now.
Walter and Richard were congratulated on what they had achieved.


2.2 Software issues (especially data entry, editing)
The data structure used by the Checklist, which could be used by new databases, is on the Web (click on the button 'About the Checklist' and follow links there). However, we still do not have an input form there - as discussed before, ISC will look at existing input programs such as those for BIOTICA and ITIS, to see whether these could be adapted. Programming help will be needed here. Scott offered to see what could be arranged with the ITIS taxonomic workbench. Currently, an NSF grant has been given to a group based at the University of Kansas to develop Knowledge Distributed Information (KDI) systems that would further develop the ITIS software.
We cannot develop a set of guidelines for contributors and botanical editors until we have that input/editing software.
We must work at two priorities in the near future:
  1. Adding more data to the GPC from existing datasets, while also
2. Getting a coordinated view (i.e. synthesise or edit the data) in the GPC.
For now, the latter is particularly important so that we can provide a coordinated dataset for incorporation in the Annual Checklist prototype being developed by Species 2000. Karen and Walter will work on upgrading the Casuarinaceae dataset from Level 1 (i.e. partly coordinated) to Level 2 (Fully coordinated Level).
Karen distributed a list of families for which we might aim to achieve a coordinated (i.e. at least to Level 1) dataset in the GPC in the next few months. Members are to send comments on this list to her, including which families they are prepared to enter/edit. Rafael Govaerts will be asked whether he is willing to contribute data on small families that fall within his list of genera 'A-C'. Walter will prepare an Excel spreadsheet format that members can use to enter data for small families (up to c. 10 species) - he emphasised the need for members to be very careful to cross-link synonyms with the accepted names in such lists to make his task of incorporation in the Checklist easier.


  1. 3 Other datasets to bring in
As noted under 2.1, various datasets are still being converted and format-edited for import into the Checklist or will be available to us soon, including Malpighiaceae, GRIN, and the Slovak dataset. Mark Newman's dataset (in Edinburgh) on Malesian Dipterocarpaceae is another. Priority will still be given at this stage to datasets backed up by published monographs.
Dick reminded us that Fagales and conifer lists have been published by Kew - Walter to talk to David Frodin about these and other Kew lists being compiled. A list for Rubiaceae has been compiled but is not yet published.
Walter will tell Doug and Bob Magill what the export specifications should be for any datasets from MO, such as Flora Mesoamericana, Ecuador or Flora of China, to facilitate import into the Checklist. Enrique will ring Marticorena about his Chilean dataset (also held at MO) - Karen to send details to Enrique of what is involved.
Walter pointed out that the work of inputting datasets still falls on himself and Richard. We need to have more distributed institutional input to spread this load - and to make it obvious to others that numerous people and institutions are already involved in the Checklist. Walter will revise the information on the website about requirements for exporting/importing datasets to make it easier for others to prepare datasets for input into the Checklist.
Scott reiterated the possibility of getting help through John Wiersema in inputting small families - Karen, Walter and Scott to follow up.
Karen is to contact Paul Petersen about the checklist of grasses of the New World being compiled by Patricia, Paul, Rob Soreng and Gerrit Davidse, currently being compiled in TROPICOS at MO.
Nancy reported that the Flora of North America is seeking funding in Canada to prepare a treatment of Brassicaceae. Could we try to extend this to a global family checklist with funding from IBPGR?


  1. 4 Funding opportunities
A joint application for GEF funding from Brazil, Mexico and Colombia to speed up production of Flora Neotropica is still being prepared, with a workshop postponed from earlier in the year to probably early 1999. Dick will be seeking GEF funds for SPP, with the help of James Seyani.

The Darwin meeting last February produced a report (the Darwin Declaration) for COP-4 in Bratislava last May, promoting a Global Taxonomy Initiative to address the 'taxonomic impediment' to management of biodiversity (IOPI was mentioned in the Declaration as one group addressing this). This proposal was accepted in Bratislava, but it is not clear whether this will translate into funding or merely international support for locally funded initiatives.
Karen urged members to investigate local funding sources such as fellowships that could be used to further development of particular subsets of the Checklist.


2.5 Any other aspects
Taxonomic Resources Network (TRN)
- Nancy is still to hand the lists of possible family coordinators and other specialists to Doug.

Pat urged that we tackle bigger families to demonstrate our credibility. For this, we need more members to take an active institutional responsibility for compilation. Suitable families to tackle might be Bignoniaceae or Rutaceae (suggested previously). Further discussion on suitable families to tackle resulted in various suggestions that Nancy is to collate and send round for comment.

Scott and Gary suggested getting a post-doc. to work on TRN coordination - a possible source of funds for at least the first year could be the NBII in the USA. Nancy is to pursue this with them.

3 Interaction with Species Plantarum Project
Dick reported that the next SPP meeting will be in Kirstenbosch, South Africa, 10-12 February 1999. The first two fascicles (an introduction and family Irvingiaceae) of the World Flora are being edited by Tony Orchard in Canberra and are expected to be published by the end of the year. Morinaceae is delayed due to more problems with the text than expected. Karen reminded the group of the need to set up a procedure for readily getting data into the Checklist from SPP treatments.


4 Interaction with Species 2000 project
Karen and Scott had already commented on the Species 2000 meeting in Santa Barbara earlier in the week. The Species 2000 Liaison and Advisory Group will meet in New Delhi during the CODATA conference in early November.


5 Any other business
CONABIO, particularly Patricia Koleff, was thanked for providing such excellent facilities for our meeting.

6 Next meeting
TDWG is already planning a meeting in Cambridge, Mass., 29-31 October 1999, and Species 2000 is looking to meet at that time, too. The meeting agreed that the CLC and probably the IOPI general meeting could be arranged at that time [later agreed to and arranged with Dave Boufford at Harvard].

The International Botanical Congress in St Louis August 1999- it was agreed that we needed a presence there, although holding a meeting could be difficult. John will investigate the possibility of having an IOPI poster on display. The need for an updated IOPI brochure for the IBC satchels was referred to the following IOPI Council meeting.

Members were asked to investigate what facilities are available locally for video-conferencing, as a way to get together without having to travel - everyone to send information to Karen.



International Organization for Plant Information (IOPI) Authorized WWW server Checklist Committee page.
K. Wilson (editor). Last modified: 8 February 1999