World Register Of Marine Species Research Articles

Correcting sponge names: nomenclatural update of lower taxa level Porifera.

The online World Porifera Database (WPD), the Porifera part of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), lists virtually all published scientific names of sponges. The names of the WPD (as indeed all names in WoRMS) are guided by the Code of the International Comnission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). The WPD names include all currently accepted as well as original combinations, and a majority of non-accepted non-original combinations. Currently, among the accepted names about 200 original lower taxa combinations were found to be accepted by default, usually varieties or formae, which were given that status in the WPD because there was no sufficient published information to support arguments for or against the accepted status. After 1961, varieties and formae are considered infrasubspecific taxa whose names are not regulated by the Code and the names are unavailable, but prior to that date these trinominal taxa are potential available names. It is the purpose of the present study to evaluate these original default accepted combinations and arrive at an argumented judgement on whether they are to be truly accepted or non-accepted. Furthermore, additional lower taxa name violations of the Code are also included. Overall, there are three categories of names of lower taxa treated here, (1) with combinations, which are judged to be accepted with elevated status as (sub)specific taxa, (2) with combinations judged to be junior synonyms, and (3) with combinations, which are violating articles of the Code. Among the last category there are a small number of varietal taxa described after the 1960 cut-off date, which are unavailable but are proposed to have the original name combination retained, but as new names with authorship and year changed to those of the present article. Also, names found to be unavailable for various reasons (four-name combinations, junior homonyms, phylocode names) are in this category. The following 31 new names are proposed (three of which are junior synonyms of senior accepted names, and an additional three are unavailable names made available by employing the same name combination with the present authorship and year): Aaptos hoshinoi nom.nov., Ancorina nanosclera nom.nov., Axinella kurushima nom.nov., Callyspongia (Cladochalina) desqueyrouxfaundezae nom.nov., Cliona carpenteri subsp. hentscheli nom.nov., Callyspongia (Toxochalina) gustavoi nom.nov., Craniella microspira nom.nov., Dictyaulus romani nom.nov., Grantia breitfussi nom.nov., Haliclona alba subsp. albapontica nom.nov., Haliclona aquaeductus subsp. sebastopolensis nom.nov., Haliclona inflata subsp. vladimiri nom.nov., Haliclona informis subsp. voldomaroi nom.nov., Haliclona palmata subsp. pontuseuxiniensis nom.nov., Haliclona (Gellius) arthuri nom.nov., Haliclona (Gellius) godthaabae nom.nov., Haliclona merguiensis nom.nov., Haliclona senjitanitai nom.nov., Iophon hentscheli nom.nov., Leucandra wilsoni nom.nov., Paraleucilla bassensis nom.nov. (= P. saccharata), Pione carpenteri subsp. hentscheli nom.nov., Psammocinia samaaii nom.nov., Protoschmidtia czerniavskyi nom.nov. (= Metschnikowia tuberculata), Reiswiginella nom.nov., Scalarispongia lamarcki nom.nov., Spheciospongia hentscheli nom.nov., Spongia (Spongia) vonlendenfeldi nom.nov. (= S. (S.) lignosa), Suberites austral nom.nov., Suberites dendyi nom.nov., Suberites simae nom.nov., and Timea levii nom.nov.

Decapod Crustacean Records from A Collection of Marine Soft-Bottom Macrofauna of the Italian Waters Supporting the Update of Checklists and Registers of the Mediterranean Basin

Decapod crustaceans are important components of the fauna of soft-bottom habitats. In this work, the records of decapod crustaceans are provided through the analysis of a large soft-bottom benthic macroinvertebrates dataset of the Central Mediterranean Sea. Decapod crustacean assemblages were collected in the last twenty years by a Van Veen grab in 42 study sites located along the Italian coasts at depths ranging from 1 up to 120 m. The spatial distribution of the crustaceans examined, which include 120 species belonging to 40 families, was investigated according to the biogeographical zones identified in the Italian seas. The spatial distribution of 36 species was updated, comparing the ISPRA decapod crustacean dataset with the most recent Italian checklists. For the species updated, the number of specimens, the year and season of sampling, and environmental data, such as the bathymetric range and habitat details, are provided for each site investigated. Data are discussed and compared with the existing literature, also referring to what is reported in the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), with the aim of contributing to the knowledge of the biodiversity of the marine species and supporting the updating of checklists and registers in the Mediterranean Basin.

Global inventory of species categorized by known underwater sonifery

A working group from the Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds effort collaborated with the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) to create an inventory of species confirmed or expected to produce sound underwater. We used several existing inventories and additional literature searches to compile a dataset categorizing scientific knowledge of sonifery for 33,462 species and subspecies across marine mammals, other tetrapods, fishes, and invertebrates. We found 729 species documented as producing active and/or passive sounds under natural conditions, with another 21,911 species deemed likely to produce sounds based on evaluated taxonomic relationships. The dataset is available on both figshare and WoRMS where it can be regularly updated as new information becomes available. The data can also be integrated with other databases (e.g., SeaLifeBase, Global Biodiversity Information Facility) to advance future research on the distribution, evolution, ecology, management, and conservation of underwater soniferous species worldwide.

MarINvaders: A web toolkit of marine species for use in environmental assessments

AbstractInvasive species are the second most important reason for species extinction since 1500 ad. In addition, these invasive species can cause vast economic loss. In marine ecoregions, alien species introductions are increasing, and those that become invasive have caused profound changes in many marine ecoregions. We compiled a database consisting of information about where species are alien, where they are not, and which species are listed as threatened by invasive species. In addition, we developed an interactive Webapp for visualizing and analyzing the results. We used the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) for identifying the presence of a species in a marine ecoregion. Information from the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), the Global Invasive Species Database (GISD), and the Nature Conservancy database on marine invasive species (NatCon) was used to identify the names and locations of marine alien species. Information from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List revealed which species are considered to be threatened by invasive species. Our database lists 112,399 marine species, of which 966 are alien species and 1655 are listed as threatened by invasive species by the IUCN. These are distributed throughout 225 marine ecoregions (97% of marine ecoregions). Our results confirm previous studies about the prevalence of alien and invasive species and provide an up‐to‐date status about known and recorded species and their distribution. This information can be used as a fundament for developing impact assessment models and identifying management strategies to combat marine invasive species.

Developing a Global Library of Underwater Biological Sounds and a World Oceans passive acoustic monitoring day

The volumes of “Ocean Sound” recordings now being collected in aquatic systems around the world have reached a level that has necessitated a new wave of data sharing, processing, and analysis techniques to help detect, identify, and assess an increasing number of known and unknown sound sources and sound types. These new tools are matched with a need for reference material to assist the rapidly growing bioacoustics research community, and a process to standardize how they are characterized and reported. A working group of the International Quiet Ocean Experiment proposed the development of a Global Library of Underwater Biological Sound (GLUBS) to integrate new and existing applications to help address these needs. Two initial objectives of GLUBS have been to increase awareness of unknown sounds and to develop a community-wide project that can broaden our understanding of aquatic soundscapes around the world. To that end, we discuss recent developments in designing GLUBS, incorporating underwater sonifery as a searchable trait on the World Register of Marine Species, initiating a recent global community effort to simultaneously record aquatic soundscapes on World Oceans Day, and a drive to agree on a standard process for characterizing newly described sounds.

Demonstration of Taxonomic Name Data Services through ChecklistBank

ChecklistBank is a publishing platform and open data repository focused on taxonomic and nomenclatural datasets. It was launched at the end of 2020, and is a joint development by Catalogue of Life (COL) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Close to 50K datasets, mostly originating from published literature mediated through Plazi's TreatmentBank, Pensoft Publishers and the European Journal of Taxonomy, are openly accessible through ChecklistBank. Data sets also include sources with (Molecular) Operational Taxonomic Units, such as from UNITE / PlutoF, National Center for Biotechnology Information Taxonomy / European Nuclotide Archive, and the International Barcode of Life / BoLD. Next to various taxonomic datasets (also from regional and national levels, e.g., shared through GBIF) and nomenclatural datasets (e.g., Zoobank, International Plant Names Index), ChecklistBank also links out to the various original initiatives websites (e.g., World Register of Marine Species, Integrated Taxonomic Information System, COL China, Species Files). ChecklistBank also holds all the tooling that is needed to assemble the COL Checklist, the authoritative global species list of all described organisms. The COL Checklist 2023 (Bánki et al. 2023), containing more than 2.1 million accepted species, is assembled from 164 global taxonomic data sources mediated through ChecklistBank. The COL Checklist contains name usage identifiers, and each checklist version and its underpinning data sources are issued with digital object identifiers. After the launching of ChecklistBank, the EU funded Biodiversity Community Integrated Knowledge Library (BiCIKL) project contributed to additional improvements to ChecklistBank. These added functionalities include, amongst others, a name usage search, name match, and a taxonomic data comparison. The tooling used to assemble the COL Checklist has been generalised through a ChecklistBank 'project functionality' supporting the assembly of a species list. During the demonstration, several of the functionalities, developed in the context of the EU BiCIKL project, will be highlighted.

Safeguarding Access to 500 Years of Biodiversity Data: Sustainability planning for the Biodiversity Heritage Library

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is the world’s largest open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives. Headquartered at Smithsonian Libraries and Archives (SLA), BHL is a global consortium of research institutions working together to build and maintain a critical piece of biodiversity data infrastructure. BHL provides free access to over 60 million pages of biodiversity content from the 15th–21st centuries. BHL works with the biodiversity community to develop tools and services to facilitate greater access, interoperability, and reuse of content and data. Through taxonomic intelligence tools developed by Global Names Architecture, BHL has indexed more than 230 million instances of taxonomic names throughout its collection, allowing researchers to locate publications about specific taxa. BHL also works to bring historical literature into the modern network of scholarly research by retroactively assigning DOIs (digital object identifiers) and making this historical content more discoverable and trackable. Biodiversity databases such as the Catalogue of Life, International Plant Names Index, Tropicos, World Register of Marine Species, and iNaturalist, rely on literature housed in BHL. Locked within its 60 million pages are valuable species occurrence data and observations from expeditions. To make this data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable), BHL and its partners are working on a data pipeline to transform textual content into actionable data that can be deposited into data aggregators such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). BHL’s shared vision began in 2006 among a small community of passionate librarians, technologists, and biodiversity researchers. Uniting as a consortium, BHL received grant funding to build and launch its digital library. BHL partners received additional grant funding for further technical development and targeted digitization projects. When initial grant funding ended in 2012, BHL established an annual dues model for its Members and Affiliates to help support central BHL operating expenses and technical development. This dues model continues today, along with in-kind contributions of staff time from Members and Affiliates. Significant funding is also provided by the Smithsonian in the form of an annual U.S. federal allocation, endowment funds, and SLA cost subvention, to host the technical infrastructure and Secretariat staff. BHL also relies on user donations to support its program. Though BHL has diversified funding streams over the years, it relies heavily on a few key institutions to cover operating costs. Though these institutions have overarching open access, research, and sustainability goals, priorities and resources to achieve these goals shift over time. Without long-term commitments, institutions may choose to prioritize new projects over established programs. Many BHL contributors have experienced funding loss for digitization projects, reducing the rate at which new content is added to BHL. Further loss of funding for central staff and technical infrastructure would reduce BHL from a data-rich technology project to an unsupported and deprecated platform. Without a long-term commitment to maintain and improve the technical infrastructure, BHL’s termination would result in countless broken links from biodiversity databases, library catalogs, Wikidata, and other aggregators across the web; detrimental impact on existing third-party projects relying on BHL citation and species data; and the elimination of more equitable and free access to biodiversity knowledge. To continue its mission, BHL must increase and improve its data integration with the wider biodiversity infrastructure and secure a sustainable future. Securing that future will require external expertise to diversify funding sources, re-engage support from existing partners, and identify new stakeholders for support. During the founding discussions of BHL, stakeholders agreed that the only way to do biodiversity science globally is through collaboration. One institution could not lead alone. Going forward, this imperative must also include collaborative funding models. Partnering with initiatives such as the Global Biodata Coalition (GBC) can lead to a stronger and more resilient biodiversity infrastructure. With ongoing collaboration, innovation, and an unwavering commitment to open access, BHL will continue to transform research on a global scale and provide researchers with the tools they need to study, explore, and conserve life on Earth.

EMODnet Biology: Unlocking European marine biodiversity data

EMODnet Biology (hosted and coordinated by the Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)) is one of the seven themes within the European Marine Observation and Data network (EMODnet). The EMODnet Biology consortium aims to facilitate the accessibility and usage of marine biodiversity data. With the principle of "collect once, use many times" at its core, EMODnet Biology fosters collaboration across various sectors, including research, policy-making, industry, and individual citizens, to enhance knowledge sharing and inform decision-making. EMODnet Biology focuses on providing free and open access to comprehensive historical and recent data on the occurrence of marine species and their traits in all European regional seas. It achieves this through partnerships and collaboration with diverse international initiatives, such as the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), Marine Regions and the European node of the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (EurOBIS) among others. By promoting the usage of the Darwin Core Standard (Wieczorek et al. 2012), EMODnet Biology fosters data interoperability and ensures seamless integration with wider networks such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), serving as a significant data provider of the latter, as it is responsible for most of its data generated in Europe. Since its inception, EMODnet Biology has undertaken actions covering various areas, including providing access to marine biological data with spatio-temporal, taxonomic, environmental- and sampling-related information among others; developing an exhaustive data quality control tool based on the Darwin Core standard, the British Oceanographic Data Centre and Natural Environment Research Council Vocabulary Server (BODC NVS2) parameters and other controlled vocabularies used; creating and providing training courses to guide data providers; performing gap analyses to identify data quality and coverage shortcomings; creating and publishing marine biological distribution maps for various species or species groups; and interacting with international and European initiatives, projects and organizations. providing access to marine biological data with spatio-temporal, taxonomic, environmental- and sampling-related information among others; developing an exhaustive data quality control tool based on the Darwin Core standard, the British Oceanographic Data Centre and Natural Environment Research Council Vocabulary Server (BODC NVS2) parameters and other controlled vocabularies used; creating and providing training courses to guide data providers; performing gap analyses to identify data quality and coverage shortcomings; creating and publishing marine biological distribution maps for various species or species groups; and interacting with international and European initiatives, projects and organizations. Furthermore, EMODnet Biology contributes to the overall EMODnet initiative, which covers multidisciplinary data and products. Thanks to the use of standard protocols and tools across disciplines, EMODnet Biology products can contribute to multidisciplinary analysis of pressures and impacts on key marine species and habitats, and, lastly, support a better management and planning of the maritime space. In conclusion, EMODnet Biology plays a pivotal role in biodiversity informatics by providing users with a wealth of accessible and reusable marine biodiversity data and products. Its collaborative approach, extensive partnerships, and adherence to the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles (Wilkinson et al. 2016) as well as to the Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE) metadata technical guidelines (European Commission Joint Research Centre 2013) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards make it a valuable resource for advancing knowledge, informing policies, and supporting sustainable management of marine ecosystems.

Towards a Quality Assurance and Quality Control Mechanism for Species List Building

Catalogue of Life (COL) brings together the efforts and contributions of taxonomists from around the world, and addresses the needs of researchers, policy-makers, environmental managers and the wider public for a consistent, up-to-date and authoritative listing of all the world’s known species. The names that science gives to species are fundamental tools that allow us to refer to these units of biodiversity. Knowing the name for a species unlocks everything that has been learned about its biology, distribution and relevance to humans. Every day, taxonomists continue to publish new scientific names and refine our understanding of the world’s species. Over the past 10 years, game-changing progress has been made with the Catalogue of Life and its authoritative taxonomic name indexing services. Major steps were made towards content completion (over 2.1 million species out of all described 2.4 million are now documented and validated through COL (Bánki et al. 2023). The COL data infrastructure and services were rebuilt in collaboration with the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). This resulted in the GBIF-COL ChecklistBank, an open global repository for publishing and sharing taxonomic and nomenclatural datasets (> 48,000 datasets, including over 160 Global Species Databases). The data managing/editing process underlying the integration of data into a single checklist (index) could be more transparent with clearly documented protocols and procedures, and is today far too time consuming. In the ChecklistBank infrastructure, there are thousands of data sources at our disposal and we need a powerful, semi-automated, community-expertise based, quality assurance process to warrant the best possible product for users of taxonomic checklists. COL aspires to document, with as much detail as possible, the current quality control and quality assurance processes as they relate to activities that occur at the following levels: 1) data providers, 2) pipeline and data conversions, 3) ChecklistBank infrastructure, and 4) checklist output. Ideally, this should happen throughout the consortium of partners that help the taxonomic community with mobilising and editing authoritative taxonomic data, including initiatives like Atlas of Living Australia, Catalogue of Life China, EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy, Integrated Taxonomic Information System, Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment, TaxonWorks / Species Files, World Flora Online / Rhakhis, World Register of Marine Species / LifeWatch Aphia. In recent years more attention has been given to the principles of creating an authoritative list of the world's species (Garnett et al. 2020). COL has developed and adopted new criteria for the inclusion of taxonomic data sources in the COL Checklist (Hobern et al. 2021). And ChecklistBank, certainly provides more avenues for (automated) quality checks and procedures. But to guarantee the highest confidence in data, we are in need of a transparent and consistent data quality assurance and data quality control mechanism from the creation of taxonomic data, to data publishing, to the delivery into taxonomic data products and the global list of known species. We will present the current status of quality control and quality assurance processes in Catalogue of Life, and discuss what should constitute a quality control and quality assurance mechanism for species list building.

Planning the Migration to a New Database: Implications for the Collections of Meise Botanic Garden

Established in 1796, the Meise Botanic Garden has undergone multiple changes in nationality, name, focus, and locations. These changes have impacted its herbarium, living collections, and associated data. The way specimens are filed in the herbarium varies according to specimen type, taxonomic group and historical importance. Pragmatic solutions were used in the past for dealing with the divergent collections and their users' specific needs. There are at least 15 filing systems used at the Botanic Garden at present. In 2015, funding facilitated the digitization of 1.2 million herbarium specimens. A follow-on project in 2018 digitzed another 1.4 million specimens. Together with other initiatives, like the Global Plants Initiative, we have more than 2.7 million imaged specimens, representing about 77% of our herbarium collections. Of the imaged specimens, 89% have minimal data (barcode, species name, collector(s), collector number, collection date, country and locality), while the remaining 11% still need the metadata captured from the scanned images (mostly being done through the crowdsourcing project DoeDat). In 2023, a call to tender was started for a new Collection Management System (CMS) as part of the Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo) Flanders*1 project. This call for tender was compiled in consultation with various natural history institutions, botanic gardens and museums in Belgium. At present, we are in the process of evaluating the various tenders. As part of the preparation to migrate the data from our present database to the new database, data gaps are being filled and data is being cleaned where possible. This will facilitate the migration from one system to another. This is particularly important for fields relating to taxonomy, countries and collectors, as these have implications for the physical location of specimens in the herbarium. In the past months, much time has been dedicated to linking specimens to the taxon table. At present fewer than 0.6% of specimens with a filing name (the scientific name under which the specimen is filed in the herbarium cupboards) remain to be linked to the taxon table. The use of the Taxonomic Name Resolution Service helped to resolve some of the issues associated with unlinked names. Many of the remaining unlinked names are names of infraspecific taxa (which are not yet in the taxon table), orthographic variations, or names of commercial cultivars or hybrids. However, this does not include the 11% of the specimens without data mentioned above. The number of specimens lacking a country code is 7%. The African Herbarium, which represents about a third of the specimens at the Botanic Garden, is sorted according to species, country and collector. Resolving missing country codes would facilitate the curatorial process for this collection. Likewise, 6% of specimen data only have collectors as free-text that still needs to be linked to the standardised collectors table. Atomizing and linking these collector strings would also ease the migration to a new CMS. In 2015, a master plan was also drawn up for the physical renovation of the Garden, including the herbarium's infrastructure. Work on the herbarium is planned for 2025, but is contingent on funding. The CMS will form a crucial part of this move as specimens will be reclassified. As is mentioned above, there are several classification systems used at the Botanic Garden. The African and Belgian collections currently follow Mabberley (1997) for angiosperms. This system is no longer up-to-date, and we are considering moving to APG IV (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group) system for flowering plants. For example, the 213 genera present at the Botanic Garden for the family Liliaceae sensu lato (Mabberley 1997) would resolve to 24 families in APG IV. As the specimens are arranged alphabetically by family and genus, this would mean a significant physical reorganization of specimens. The CMS will also be used to track the movement of the various collections. Once the new CMS has been chosen, we will have a better idea of what needs to be done in order to facilitate data migration. For example, linking our taxonomic names to external sources using their permanent identifiers (e.g., World Flora Online, International Plant Names Index, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Index Fungorum, MycoBank, World Register of Marine Species) would allow us to track and maintain taxonomic changes more easily in the future. Importing the various permanent identifiers into our current database would be prone to inconsistencies as the existing fields are not fit for the purpose. A possible solution would be to manage this data externally and import them into the new CMS. A similar approach could be followed with collectors and Wikidata permanent identifiers. We hope to develop a pragmatic approach with practical solutions.

A Case Study in Sharing Marine eDNA Metabarcoding Data to OBIS

Metabarcoding of DNA collected from an environmental sample (eDNA) is increasingly employed in marine biodiversity surveys, with the ability to target taxa from microbes to plankton to large vertebrates depending on the molecular markers used. These techniques are often the only viable method to detect certain taxonomic groups, and therefore provide observations that are currently under-represented on existing biodiversity data platforms, such as the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Some of the reasons for this disconnect include the unique data structures inherent to eDNA datasets, the complexities of combining marine observation data and environmental data (De Pooter et al. 2017), and the minimal availability of documented examples. Here we present a detailed case study on the preparation of marine metabarcoding survey data for publication to OBIS. This data comes from the 2021 Gulf of Mexico Ecosystems and Carbon Cycle (GOMECC) cruise led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), employing 17 coastal-offshore transects across the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Metabarcoding libraries targeted bacteria and archaea with the 16S rRNA marker and eukaryotes with the 18S rRNA marker. Amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) were inferred for each marker, then taxonomy was assigned to these ASVs using the open-sourced reference databases PR2 5.0.1 and SILVA 138.1. OBIS requires that taxonomic assignments are converted to the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) nomenclature, which can be particularly challenging for marine bacteria and archaea as these taxa are underrepresented on WoRMS. Three tables—the per-sample ASV observation counts, assigned taxonomy of the ASV sequences, and sample collection data—were then converted to the DNA derived extension for Darwin Core (Abarenkov et al. 2023) using a combination of new and OBIS-provided Python scripts (LaScala-Gruenewald et al. 2021). This workflow is available at the NOAA Omics Data Management Guide*1, which will also host links to NOAA Omics datasets. Some of the key challenges to navigate when preparing metabarcoding data for OBIS include: developing a sample collection data template, converting taxonomic assignments to WoRMS nomenclature while preserving the original assignments, and recording the complex methodological and bioinformatic processes involved in data generation in order to be reproducible. developing a sample collection data template, converting taxonomic assignments to WoRMS nomenclature while preserving the original assignments, and recording the complex methodological and bioinformatic processes involved in data generation in order to be reproducible. We describe our workflow for tackling these challenges, with the aim of fostering discussion on best practices for publishing marine eDNA data to biodiversity data platforms. This work is part of a larger effort across NOAA ’Omics to develop a comprehensive bioinformatics platform and data management framework for marine eDNA and microbiome data.

Benchmarking global biodiversity of decapod crustaceans (Crustacea: Decapoda)

AbstractA new assessment of the global biodiversity of decapod Crustacea (to 31 December 2022) records 17,229 species in 2,550 genera and 203 families. These figures are derived from a well-curated dataset maintained on the online platform DecaNet, a subsidiary of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). Distinct phases are recognised in the discovery process (as measured by species descriptions) corresponding to major historical and geopolitical time periods, with the current rate of species descriptions being more than three times higher than in the Victorian age of global exploration. Future trends are briefly explored, and it is recognised that a large number of species remain to be discovered and described.

AlgaeTraits: a trait database for (European) seaweeds

Abstract. The analysis of biological and ecological traits has a long history in evolutionary and ecological research. However, trait data are often scattered and standardised terminology that transcends taxonomic and biogeographical context are generally missing. As part of the development of a global trait database of marine species, we collated trait information for European seaweeds and structured the data within the standardised framework of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). We collected 45 175 trait records for 21 biologically and ecologically relevant traits of seaweeds. This resulted in a trait database for 1745 European seaweed species of which more than half (56 %) of the records were documented at the species level, while the remaining 44 % were documented at a higher taxonomic level and subsequently inherited at lower levels. The trait database for European seaweeds will serve as a foundation for future research on diversity and evolution of seaweeds and their responses to global changes. The data will contribute to developing detailed trait-based ecosystem models and will be an important tool to inform marine conservation policies. The data are publicly accessible through the AlgaeTraits portal, https://doi.org/10.14284/574 (AlgaeTraits, 2022).

Marine biodiversity discovery: the metrics of new species descriptions

Based on the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), there are currently c. 242,000 known valid marine species living in the world's oceans and marine biota continue to be discovered and named steadily at a current average of 2,332 new species per year. The “average” newly described marine species is a benthic crustacean, annelid, or mollusc between 2 and 10 mm in size, living in the tropics at depths of 0–60 m, and represented in the description by 7–19 specimens. It is described after a shelf life of 13.5 years in an article with two to three authors in a journal with an IF <1, published by an academic institution or society or a small commercial publisher. It is highly likely that the description is not accompanied by molecular data and that its authors do not work in an institution in a region of the world where the new species comes from. At the current pace of discovery and characterization, it will take several hundred years to describe the remaining 1–2 million unknown marine species. With increased facilitation of access to literature, marine taxonomy will increasingly rely on retired professionals and citizen scientists. The barriers to new marine species descriptions are in part technological (access to habitats that are difficult to sample) and educational (training to generate and use molecular barcodes), but mostly institutional (funding of taxonomic work) and regulatory (restrictions imposed by access and benefit sharing legislation).

The genus Contracaecum Raillet & Henry (Nematoda: Anisakidae): host and geographical distribution on Neotropical and Antarctic species

Nematodes of the genus Contracaecum Raillet & Henry, 1912 (Anisakidae, Contracaecinae) have a worldwide distribution. The taxonomy of the genus Contracaecum is well-known nowadays due to several morphometric studies, scanning electron microscopy, and molecular biology. The aim of this work was to review, clarify, and summarize the valid species of the genus Contracaecum parasitizing piscivorous sea birds and mammals from both the Neotropical and Antarctic regions reviewing all scientific available papers and electronic searching data up to date. A checklist on Neotropical and Antarctic Contracaecum spp. was organized through a revision of scientific papers and original descriptions. The systematic online search and the most updated papers were obtained through SCOPUS, Google Scholar, PubMed, Medline, World Register of Marine Species, etc. We provide information about hosts, Neotropical and Antarctic localities where worms were collected, references, molecular markers, and Genbank accession numbers. Twenty-five Neotropical and Antarctic Contracaecum species have been recorded up to date and checked out as valid ones according to the most updated data. Twenty-one species parasitize exclusively fish-eating birds, two species were reported only on marine mammals, and the other two parasitize both sea birds and mammals. A total of 20 Contracaecum species are exclusively reported for the Neotropical region, three only for Antarctic hosts, and two species were reported parasitizing both Neotropical and Antarctic hosts. Several Contracaecum species (10) have been corroborated by molecular analysis of different genetic markers. After reviewing all morphological descriptions of the Contracaecum species, and despite most of them have been characterized only by morphometric methods, we are convinced that all species listed in this work correspond to good and valid Contracaecum Neotropical and Antarctic species. Present results indicate that more taxonomic and molecular studies are needed to advance the understanding of the distribution and host specificity of the Contracaecum species.

Linked Data Publishing of the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) as a Basis for Uniformly Linking-up Resources to Accepted Taxon Names

The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) is an authoritative classification and catalogue of marine names. The WoRMS portal and available web-services are a gateway to access a treasure-chest of information, not only on taxon names themselves, but also on their mutual relations (e.g., original names, accepted versus unaccepted names, taxonomic classification), and related information such as ecological traits, distributions and linked literature. Over its fifteen years of existence, WoRMS has not only been growing in content and quality, thanks to the voluntary efforts of more than 300 experts worldwide, it has also kept a technical trajectory that involves adapting to new standards and technologies. Although WoRMS has always been relatively easily accessible through its portal and web services, and applied the basic data-sharing principles of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable), there is still room for improvement. The recently growing call for globally uniform identifiers coming from the application of the FAIR data sharing principles, and the growing investment into globally open and interlinked "digital twin" representations of our oceans and the organisms found in them, have introduced the fundamentals for growing a marine knowledge graph, and as a consequence, has directed some technical attention towards applying semantic web technologies. WoRMS plays a key role in the field of (marine) biodiversity, as this research field strongly relies on the correct usage of species names, and understanding the taxonomic relationships between taxon names. As WoRMS is regarded as the authoritative resource for marine names, it is also heavily used as a quality-control tool for the correct usage of taxon names within various European and global initiatives. WoRMS provides support to global databases and infrastructures that use (or are in need of) a marine taxonomic backbone, such as the LifeWatch Species Information Backbone, the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS) and the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), as well as improves the content and strengthens relationships with environment-independent initiatives and infrastructures such as the Catalogue of Life (COL), the Barcode of Life Data System (BoLD) & GenBank. In addition to the taxonomic value of WoRMS, it is also highly valued for its available information on species traits, which form a critical component in ecological marine research. In its role as a marine taxonomic backbone, along with being linked to numerous other environment-independent initiatives and infrastructures, WoRMS has always required an adaptability towards the challenging new ways specific applications and concrete research have been choosing to apply the identifiers affixed by WoRMS. It is in this tradition we now announce and describe our approach to publish the content of the register as fully linked open data, using semantic web technologies. We describe in some detail the choices made to select and apply specific vocabularies that already exist for the description and interconnected linking of taxon names, to address the tension between hanging on to an historic (URN) persistent identifier and providing a dereferenceable URI that supports the appreciated "follow your nose" property, to link to other relevant registries, to design meaningful predicates for inbound links to the register and, more technically to divide the available content into meaningful sub-sections for retrieval of optional detail, and to provide a roadmap for meaningful fragmentations of the full register to allow for an effective consumption of the relevant (e.g., newly updated) parts into specific data-consumption scenarios. to select and apply specific vocabularies that already exist for the description and interconnected linking of taxon names, to address the tension between hanging on to an historic (URN) persistent identifier and providing a dereferenceable URI that supports the appreciated "follow your nose" property, to link to other relevant registries, to design meaningful predicates for inbound links to the register and, more technically to divide the available content into meaningful sub-sections for retrieval of optional detail, and to provide a roadmap for meaningful fragmentations of the full register to allow for an effective consumption of the relevant (e.g., newly updated) parts into specific data-consumption scenarios. We believe this work to be an important step towards achieving some future goals. It should further facilitate the production of automated, managed or hybrid crosswalks between various taxonomic registers and classifications. To be especially considered here, is helping to make omics taxonomic references more meaningfully comparable with WoRMS. In the process of others linking their digital objects (e.g., services, datasets, publications, experts) to taxon IDs in WoRMS, they are effectively also linking to each other, which opens the doors between apparently unconnected bodies. Its continuing use as a global standard and trustworthy reference of community-accepted names for biological taxa becomes the essential glue connecting all sorts of services, initiatives, communities.

How repeatable are scientific studies of Kinorhyncha? An analysis of specimen-based location and deposition data in WoRMS from 1863 to 2020

Location and specimen deposition of Kinorhyncha were analysed for the time period 1863–2020 based on data generated from the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS). From at least 11,760 specimens collected during this time period according to the scientific literature from all fields of research, 41 % were deposited in a reference collection, 21 % in a personal collection, and for 38 % it is unknown whether or not they were deposited at all. Whereas no type material was mentioned in publications to have been deposited in a reference collection before 1938, the situation improved in the 1960s–1980s with most specimens deposited. The most recent time period 2011–2020 suffered again from a low deposition rate of 55 % for the material of new species as types plus 15 % as non-types and an overall deposition rate of 42 % for types plus non-types of new and known species. This is the first time that the deposition behaviour is documented for an entire animal group for all fields of research over a time period of 158 years. The implications for kinorhynch research and for zoological science at large are discussed. The results presented are regarded as a wake-up call for scientists to consider their current deposition behaviour, to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, funding and permitting bodies, as well as journal editors to tighten their deposition requirements, and to the funding bodies to provide funding for the deposition of specimens as soon as ever possible in order to keep the loss of the cultural heritage in natural history to a minimum.

An Algorithmic Approach to Reducing Taxonomic Detail from Actual Datasets to their Metadata Representation to Increase Findabilty

The rise in demand for more FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) data is being answered by increasingly automated ways to capture, process, publish and register biodiversity datasets. Coupled with the increasing possibilities for detecting hundreds of species in a single sample/event (i.e., eDNA), this results in taxonomic information that is multiple levels of magnitude higher than it was a couple of years ago. This spike in content has an adverse effect on the ability of researchers to find relevant datasets within catalogues, due to the limitations in storing and displaying the taxonomic metadata (e.g., in the real-estate of a webpage, in the timeframe required to access the quantity of information, in displaying information to users in a comprehensive and comprehensible way). WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species) is a taxonomic backbone that provides species information. One user of WoRMS is the Integrated Marine Information System (IMIS), a metadata catalogue for marine data, which is also the metadata catalogue of the European node of the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (EurOBIS). Taxonomic information added to the metadata records in IMIS are linked to WoRMS Persitent Identifiers or PIDs (AphiaIDs). Tension between providing all the taxonomic metadata while not overloading the catalogue is being addressed for the use-case of WoRMS+IMIS+EurOBIS. Our approach is to apply a filter-and-replace algorithm during the automated registration of the taxonomic metadata to describe available datasets. This technique reduces the detailed taxonomic information of actual occurrences in the dataset content into practical (good enough) metadata. It takes as input all the species in the dataset along with their hierarchical structure, as well as a configuration parameter allowing for an upper bound to the acceptable number of taxa to be output. The core principle of the algorithm is to start off with the minimal result set containing only the hierarchical root (always "biota") of the complete taxonomy in the dataset, and then to gradually consider replacing each element with its children one level deeper, as long as that replacement keeps fitting the upper bound for the total set. This approach ensures that no coverage is lost, meaning every taxon in the actual dataset is represented in the result, although possibly through one of its parents, X layers up. Note that as long as only one child is underlying, the switch will always happen. So by nature, it will go down to the lowest relevant detail without challenging the upper bound limit. It also allows for variation in the actual processing by allowing for different ordering strategies on the current result-set. Ordering strategies under test are: Order (descending) by weight of underlying available children → favouring more detail in those parts of the tree that have the most members in the setWith weight defined as the count of all underlying available species, ORWeight defined as the sum-product of those species with their actual occurrences in the dataset (thus further favouring detail to those parts of the tree that are more prevalent in the samples) Order (descending) by number of direct children → favouring fanning-out over available high-level siblings Order (ascending) by ratio of present children over available children in the taxa → favouring replacing too vague parents with the more specific sublevels that are actually in the dataset Order (descending) by weight of underlying available children → favouring more detail in those parts of the tree that have the most members in the setWith weight defined as the count of all underlying available species, ORWeight defined as the sum-product of those species with their actual occurrences in the dataset (thus further favouring detail to those parts of the tree that are more prevalent in the samples) With weight defined as the count of all underlying available species, OR Weight defined as the sum-product of those species with their actual occurrences in the dataset (thus further favouring detail to those parts of the tree that are more prevalent in the samples) Order (descending) by number of direct children → favouring fanning-out over available high-level siblings Order (ascending) by ratio of present children over available children in the taxa → favouring replacing too vague parents with the more specific sublevels that are actually in the dataset Alongside this basic approach, additional pre-processing of the taxa in the dataset can apply some form of "pruning". In this approach all nodes in the available taxon tree of the dataset are ordered (descending) by the weight of underlying children, and those at the end—below some defined cutoff ratio (extra parameter to the algorithm)—are simply discarded. Again, the interpretation of this weight (only species count, or multiplied by occurrence count) yields to variants of the algorithm to be tested. Applying this pruning means a deliberate departure is taken from the full-coverage guarantee mentioned earlier. Caution should be applied, of course, but removing more irrelevant (low occurrence) parts of the tree will allow for making space in the bounded result-set for more detail in the parts that are relevant. In order to create an objective basis for comparing the resulting variants, a number of "qualification" parameters are considered to quantify the effect of the suggested reduction. Based on the datasets in EurOBIS, the variants of this algorithm are being applied and results will be presented on how they affect the various qualification parameters. It is worth observing that both datasets and their metadata records are distinct resources that are being linked to species (taxa references) and that the different purposes they serve require different levels of detail to be presented. As other types of entities (publications, habitats, experts, geography, traits, etc.) are considered for linking to species, we believe similar reduction algorithms will be necessary.

Attribution of the taxon name Echinoidea to Schumacher, 1817.

The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS), The Interagency Taxonomic Information System (ITIS, Report Taxonomic Serial No 157821), and Wikispecies all identify Leske (1778) as the author of the taxon Echinoidea. They base this attribution on the synonymy of Durham et al. (1966: U297) who stated Class ECHINOIDEA Leske, 1778 [nom. transl. Bronn, 1860, p. 295 (ex order Echinoidea dOrbigny, 1852 [sic], p. 114, nom correct. pro ordo Echinus Leske, 1778, p. xvi [sic])]. This confusing construction led to a strange result in which the taxon Echinoidea was attributed to an author who never used that name (Leske), whilst it deprived the author who established it (Schumacher) and the one who first conceived the grouping (Bruguire) of any credit. This note examines the works of various authors credited with the authorship of the taxon Echinoidea, particularly Leske, dOrbigny, von Zittel, and Bronn, and concludes that the taxon Echinoidea should be attributed to Schumacher, 1817.

Taxonomic Curation in a Multi-taxa Symbiota Portal

Symbiota is an open-source software that allows the creation of online portals for accessing, managing, and mobilizing biodiversity data (Gries et al. 2014, Symbiota Support Hub 2021). Most of the portals are focused on communities with specific taxonomic interests, which often allows the construction of specialized taxonomic thesauri by portal managers (Gilbert et al. 2020, Pearson 2021a). A portal dedicated to the full range of collections in one country (Portal de Biodiversidad de Guatemala 2022) has represented an interesting challenge for taxonomic management. The Guatemala Biodiversity portal currently allows the digitization and active management of 29 natural history collections in this country, including collections of vertebrates, invertebrates, plants, fungi, lichens, and fossils. Additionally, two institutional observation collections are live managed within the portal (Orellana et al. 2022). This brings up the need to have a suitable taxonomic thesaurus that serves all the collection managers involved. Similar to other Symbiota portals, the Guatemala Biodiversity portal facilitates the incorporation of external catalogs such as Catalog of Life (Bánki et al. 2022), and the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS Editorial Board 2022), resources which could easily constitute the base of the taxonomic thesaurus of the portal. However, due to the regional focus of this site, it is not ideal to add all the species available in these virtual catalogs. A partial solution has been importing snapshot collections with Guatemalan records from different Symbiota portals, or from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF.org 2022). This approach takes advantage of the specimens identified by specialists in different collections around the world, and the taxonomic cleaning tools available in Symbiota portals (Pearson 2021b) allow the curation of the scientific names. Nevertheless, these automated tools are often not enough to maintain the taxonomic thesaurus in understudied regions, such as Guatemala, and the manual curation of species names is still necessary. The curation of the taxonomic thesaurus in this portal is a work in progress, and we are achieving this with the creation of curated checklists within the portal (Orellana 2022, Pearson and Walker 2021), with the incorporation of names in published catalogs (Cano 2006, Cano and Schuster 2012, Camacho et al. 2022), and with the curation of the available names according to institutional catalogs (CECON 2022). Additional information about the conservation status of the species is being added to the taxon profile pages, attaching recent data provided by the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and publications by local researchers (IUCN 2021, Elías et al. 2022). The availability of a regional curated taxonomic thesaurus in the Guatemala Biodiversity portal is still limited and restricted to groups like vertebrates and certain groups of insects, yet this online resource is useful for researchers who are working in local collections or are compiling information to publish new catalogs and checklists for Guatemala. Continuing with the improvement of this taxonomic resource is necessary not only to advance the knowledge of the biodiversity of Guatemala but to aggregate this information into relevant global catalogs.