Scientific Names and Descriptions for Organisms on the Semantic Web

Abstract

An efficient process for creating precise, accurate, machine-interpretable morpho- logical descriptions of groups of organisms is needed to more effectively gather observations of the world’s biodiversity. While morphological descriptions are required for the publication of modern scientific names, it is common for these descriptions to get revised after the initial pub- lication which can lead to data loss. A system for creating and naming machine-interpretable descriptions of groups of organisms, the Semantic Vernacular System, is proposed as a solu- tion for creating such descriptions and managing their relationship to formal scientific names while improving the collection of observational data.