New version of the database “Ephemeroptera of the World” as the first experience of a permanent and objective web catalogue in biology

Abstract

Two databases, “Ephemeroptera of the World” and “Phylogeny of Ephemeroptera”, are now available from the website http://www.insecta.bio.pu.ru. They are linked by a common front-page, common alphabetic index, common list of references and numerous links, however, both are basically different and each database can be used separately. While the web database “Phylogeny of Ephemeroptera” represents a usual scientific work, the web database “Ephemeroptera of the World” is unusual in a way that it can objectively reflect all scientific literature on the Ephemeroptera. This is the first attempt to build such a database in all biology. Cataloguing of biological information of a group of animals as a web database is necessary, but existing sites do not fulfill the requirements needed in such catalogues. In existing web catalogues, objective information is mixed with subjective opinions by the compilers in such a manner that further development of these databases for scientific needs is impossible. Principles elaborated for the database “Ephemeroptera of the World” can be used to create such comprehensive global databases, which could be used and filled up for an unlimitedly long time without reconstruction. The most important principles include correct selection of objective nomenclatural information from subjective scientific information, using primary binomina as universal markers for nomenclatural species, uniting typified supra-species nomenclatural taxa according to their type genera, and using the universal form of typified names.