5 On the Use of Taxonomic Concepts in Support of Biodiversity Research and Taxonomy

Future biodiversity research will make increased use of distributed data networks, scientific workflows, and powerful mechanisms for resolving a broad spectrum of primary data. This paper outlines the anatomy of an ecological niche modeling workflow and concomitant needs for taxonomic resolution. Contemporary Linnaean names and synonymy relationships are shown to be too imprecise too support these needs. Taxonomic concepts (i.e., the meanings of names as specified in a particular source) and a new vocabulary for expressing their semantic interrelationships are introduced as a more reliable long-term solution. The concept approach has so far been implemented with success in select taxonomic databases and regional floristic treatments. Quantitative analyses have added further weight to the claim that taxonomic concepts are suitable to overcome the problem of name/meaning disjunction inherent in conventional nomenclature. Therefore, full documentation of the taxonomic process will depend on a wider adoption of concept taxonomy. The concept approach will improve communication about nature without compromising any of the useful properties of the Linnaean system.

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