1.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
2.
Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
3.
Arthropod
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An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda, which includes the insects, arachnids, myriapods, arthropods are characterized by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chitin, often mineralised with calcium carbonate. The arthropod body plan consists of segments, each with a pair of appendages, the rigid cuticle inhibits growth, so arthropods replace it periodically by moulting. Their versatility has enabled them to become the most species-rich members of all guilds in most environments. They have over a million described species, making up more than 80% of all described living species, some of which. Arthropods range in size from the microscopic crustacean Stygotantulus up to the Japanese spider crab, arthropods primary internal cavity is a hemocoel, which accommodates their internal organs, and through which their haemolymph – analogue of blood – circulates, they have open circulatory systems. Like their exteriors, the organs of arthropods are generally built of repeated segments. Their nervous system is ladder-like, with paired ventral nerve cords running through all segments and their heads are formed by fusion of varying numbers of segments, and their brains are formed by fusion of the ganglia of these segments and encircle the esophagus. The respiratory and excretory systems of arthropods vary, depending as much on their environment as on the subphylum to which they belong, arthropods also have a wide range of chemical and mechanical sensors, mostly based on modifications of the many setae that project through their cuticles. Aquatic species use internal or external fertilization. Almost all arthropods lay eggs, but scorpions give birth to live young after the eggs have hatched inside the mother, arthropod hatchlings vary from miniature adults to grubs and caterpillars that lack jointed limbs and eventually undergo a total metamorphosis to produce the adult form. The level of care for hatchlings varies from nonexistent to the prolonged care provided by scorpions. The evolutionary ancestry of arthropods dates back to the Cambrian period, the group is generally regarded as monophyletic, and many analyses support the placement of arthropods with cycloneuralians in a superphylum Ecdysozoa. Overall however, the relationships of Metazoa are not yet well resolved. Likewise, the relationships between various groups are still actively debated. Arthropods contribute to the food supply both directly as food, and more importantly indirectly as pollinators of crops. Some species are known to spread disease to humans, livestock. The word arthropod comes from the Greek ἄρθρον árthron, joint, and πούς pous, i. e. foot or leg, arthropods are invertebrates with segmented bodies and jointed limbs
4.
Insect
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Insects are a class of hexapod invertebrates within the arthropod phylum that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body, three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes and one pair of antennae. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, including more than a million described species, the number of extant species is estimated at between six and ten million, and potentially represent over 90% of the differing animal life forms on Earth. Insects may be found in all environments, although only a small number of species reside in the oceans. The life cycles of insects vary but most hatch from eggs, insect growth is constrained by the inelastic exoskeleton and development involves a series of molts. The immature stages can differ from the adults in structure, habit and habitat, Insects that undergo 3-stage metamorphosis lack a pupal stage and adults develop through a series of nymphal stages. The higher level relationship of the Hexapoda is unclear, fossilized insects of enormous size have been found from the Paleozoic Era, including giant dragonflies with wingspans of 55 to 70 cm. The most diverse insect groups appear to have coevolved with flowering plants, adult insects typically move about by walking, flying or sometimes swimming. As it allows for rapid yet stable movement, many insects adopt a tripedal gait in which they walk with their legs touching the ground in alternating triangles, Insects are the only invertebrates to have evolved flight. Many insects spend at least part of their lives under water, with adaptations that include gills. Some species, such as water striders, are capable of walking on the surface of water, Insects are mostly solitary, but some, such as certain bees, ants and termites, are social and live in large, well-organized colonies. Some insects, such as earwigs, show maternal care, guarding their eggs, Insects can communicate with each other in a variety of ways. Male moths can sense the pheromones of female moths over great distances, other species communicate with sounds, crickets stridulate, or rub their wings together, to attract a mate and repel other males. Lampyridae in the beetle order communicate with light, humans regard certain insects as pests, and attempt to control them using insecticides and a host of other techniques. Some insects damage crops by feeding on sap, leaves or fruits, a few parasitic species are pathogenic. Some insects perform complex ecological roles, blow-flies, for example, help consume carrion, Many other insects are considered ecologically beneficial as predators and a few provide direct economic benefit. Silkworms and bees have been used extensively by humans for the production of silk and honey, in some cultures, people eat the larvae or adults of certain insects. Insect first appears documented in English in 1601 in Hollands translation of Pliny, translations of Aristotles term also form the usual word for insect in Welsh, Serbo-Croatian, Russian, etc. The evolutionary relationship of insects to other animal groups remains unclear, in the Pancrustacea theory, insects, together with Entognatha, Remipedia, and Cephalocarida, make up a natural clade labeled Miracrustacea
5.
Hymenoptera
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Hymenoptera is the third-largest order of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 species are recognized, with many more remaining to be described, females typically have a special ovipositor for inserting eggs into hosts or otherwise inaccessible places. The ovipositor is modified into a stinger. The young develop through holometabolism —that is, they have a larval stage. The name Hymenoptera refers to the wings of the insects, all references agree that the derivation involves the Ancient Greek πτερόν for wing. The Ancient Greek ὑμήν for membrane provides an etymology for the term because this order like several others has membranous wings. However, a key characteristic of this order is that the wings are connected to the fore wings by a series of hooks. Thus, another plausible etymology involves Hymen, the Ancient Greek god of marriage, Hymenoptera originated in the Triassic, with the oldest fossils belonging to the family Xyelidae. Social hymenopterans appeared during the Cretaceous, the evolution of this group has been intensively studied by Alex Rasnitsyn, Michael S. Engel, G. Dlussky, and others. This clade has been studied by examining the mitochondrial DNA, although this study was unable to resolve all the ambiguities in this clade, some relationships could be established. The Aculeata, Ichneumonomorpha, and Proctotrupomorpha were monophyletic, the Megalyroidea and Trigonalyoidea are sister clades as are the Chalcidoidea+Diaprioidea. The Cynipoidea was generally recovered as the group to Chalcidoidea and Diaprioidea which are each others closest relations. The cladogram is based on Schulmeister 2003, hymenopterans range in size from very small to large insects, and usually have two pairs of wings. Their mouthparts are adapted for chewing, with well-developed mandibles, many species have further developed the mouthparts into a lengthy proboscis, with which they can drink liquids, such as nectar. They have large eyes, and typically three simple eyes. The forward margin of the hind wing bears a number of hooked bristles, or hamuli, the smaller species may have only two or three hamuli on each side, but the largest wasps may have a considerable number, keeping the wings gripped together especially tightly. Hymenopteran wings have relatively few veins compared with other insects. In the more ancestral hymenopterans, the ovipositor is blade-like, and has evolved for slicing plant tissues, in the majority, however, it is modified for piercing, and, in some cases, is several times the length of the body
6.
Ant
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Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from ancestors in the Cretaceous period, about 99 million years ago. More than 12,500 of an total of 22,000 species have been classified. They are easily identified by their antennae and the distinctive node-like structure that forms their slender waists. Larger colonies consist mostly of sterile, wingless females forming castes of workers, soldiers, nearly all ant colonies also have some fertile males called drones and one or more fertile females called queens. The colonies are described as superorganisms because the ants appear to operate as a unified entity, Ants have colonised almost every landmass on Earth. The only places lacking indigenous ants are Antarctica and a few remote or inhospitable islands, Ants thrive in most ecosystems and may form 15–25% of the terrestrial animal biomass. Their success in so many environments has been attributed to their organisation and their ability to modify habitats, tap resources. Their long co-evolution with other species has led to mimetic, commensal, parasitic, Ant societies have division of labour, communication between individuals, and an ability to solve complex problems. These parallels with human societies have long been an inspiration and subject of study, many human cultures make use of ants in cuisine, medication, and rituals. Some species are valued in their role as biological pest control agents and their ability to exploit resources may bring ants into conflict with humans, however, as they can damage crops and invade buildings. Some species, such as the red imported fire ant, are regarded as invasive species, all of these words come from West Germanic *ēmaitijǭ, and the original meaning of the word was the biter. The family Formicidae belongs to the order Hymenoptera, which also includes sawflies, bees, Ants evolved from a lineage within the aculeate wasps, and a 2013 study suggests that they are a sister group of the Apoidea. In 1966, E. O. Wilson and his colleagues identified the remains of an ant that lived in the Cretaceous period. The specimen, trapped in amber dating back to around 92 million years ago, has found in some wasps. Sphecomyrma possibly was a ground forager, while Haidomyrmex and Haidomyrmodes, older ants in the genus Sphecomyrmodes have been found in 99 million year-old amber from Myanmar. After the rise of flowering plants about 100 million years ago they diversified and assumed ecological dominance around 60 million years ago. Some groups, such as the Leptanillinae and Martialinae, are suggested to have diversified from early primitive ants that were likely to have been predators underneath the surface of the soil, during the Cretaceous period, a few species of primitive ants ranged widely on the Laurasian supercontinent
7.
Atta (genus)
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Atta is a genus of New World ants of the subfamily Myrmicinae. It contains at least 17 known species, Leaf-cutter ants are relatively large, rusty red or brown in colour, and have a spiny body and long legs. The three main castes within a nest are the queen, worker and soldier, only the queens and males have wings, and these ants are also known as reproductives or swarmers. Although most of the ants in the nest are female, only the queens produce eggs, queens are usually over 20 mm long. Ants of the genus Atta are leafcutter ants that comprise one of the two genera of leafcutting ants within the tribe Attini, along with Acromyrmex, Atta is one of the most spectacular of the attines, with colonies that can comprise in excess of one million individuals. Atta exhibits a degree of polymorphism, with four castes being present in established colonies, minims, minors, mediae. The high degree of polymorphism in this genus is also suggestive of its degree of advancement. Every caste has a function, and some remarkably advanced phenomena have been observed in Atta species. While hitchhiking, the minims also work to decontaminate the fragment before it arrives at the nest and that the minims behave in this way demonstrates the highly derived character of the species. Like Acromyrmex, Atta subsists mostly on a species of fungus that it cultivates on a medium of masticated leaf tissue. This is the food of the queen and other colony members that remain in the nest. The media workers also gain subsistence from plant sap they ingest while physically cutting out sections of leaf from a variety of plants. However, this does not diminish the huge quantities of foliage they harvest, consequently, the genus is considered a major agricultural pest species in areas where its range coincides with farming activity. Leafcutter ants are very specialized organisms in that they coevolved with another organism through symbiosis and this process took millions of years to occur, about 50 million years ago, which is when these ants began their relationship with plants. The fungus eventually lost the ability to produce spores and the ants capitalized on that by making the fungus its main food source, about 66 million years ago, South America was isolated from other land masses, and this is when gardening ants started their relationship with a fungus. It has been hypothesized that leafcutter ants propagated the same fungal lineage for 25 million years, leafcutter ants can create bottom-up gaps by forming their large nests. The ants excavate soil rich in organic matter, and store additional organic matter in their underground chambers and this creates rich soils that promote plant growth. The ants can also trim the leaves of plants in the understory and they can also control the types of trees and other plants by selectively bringing seeds into the underground chambers
8.
Binomial nomenclature
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Such a name is called a binomial name, a binomen, binominal name or a scientific name, more informally it is also called a Latin name. The first part of the name identifies the genus to which the species belongs, for example, humans belong to the genus Homo and within this genus to the species Homo sapiens. The formal introduction of system of naming species is credited to Carl Linnaeus. But Gaspard Bauhin, in as early as 1623, had introduced in his book Pinax theatri botanici many names of genera that were adopted by Linnaeus. Although the general principles underlying binomial nomenclature are common to these two codes, there are differences, both in the terminology they use and in their precise rules. Similarly, both parts are italicized when a binomial name occurs in normal text, thus the binomial name of the annual phlox is now written as Phlox drummondii. In scientific works, the authority for a name is usually given, at least when it is first mentioned. In zoology Patella vulgata Linnaeus,1758, the original name given by Linnaeus was Fringilla domestica, the parentheses indicate that the species is now considered to belong in a different genus. The ICZN does not require that the name of the person who changed the genus be given, nor the date on which the change was made, in botany Amaranthus retroflexus L. – L. is the standard abbreviation used in botany for Linnaeus. – Linnaeus first named this bluebell species Scilla italica, Rothmaler transferred it to the genus Hyacinthoides, the ICN does not require that the dates of either publication be specified. Prior to the adoption of the binomial system of naming species. Together they formed a system of polynomial nomenclature and these names had two separate functions. First, to designate or label the species, and second, to be a diagnosis or description, such polynomial names may sometimes look like binomials, but are significantly different. For example, Gerards herbal describes various kinds of spiderwort, The first is called Phalangium ramosum, Branched Spiderwort, is aptly termed Phalangium Ephemerum Virginianum, Soon-Fading Spiderwort of Virginia. The Latin phrases are short descriptions, rather than identifying labels, the Bauhins, in particular Caspar Bauhin, took some important steps towards the binomial system, by pruning the Latin descriptions, in many cases to two words. The adoption by biologists of a system of binomial nomenclature is due to Swedish botanist and physician Carl von Linné. It was in his 1753 Species Plantarum that he first began using a one-word trivial name together with a generic name in a system of binomial nomenclature. This trivial name is what is now known as an epithet or specific name
9.
Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
10.
10th edition of Systema Naturae
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The 10th edition of Systema Naturae is a book written by Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature for animals, something he had already done for plants in his 1753 publication of Species Plantarum, before 1758, most biological catalogues had used polynomial names for the taxa included, including earlier editions of Systema Naturae. The first work to consistently apply binomial nomenclature across the kingdom was the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Names published before that date are unavailable, even if they would otherwise satisfy the rules, during Linnaeus lifetime, Systema Naturae was under continuous revision. The Animal Kingdom, Animals enjoy sensation by means of an organization, animated by a medullary substance, perception by nerves. They have members for the different purposes of life, organs for their different senses and they all originate from an egg. Their external and internal structure, their anatomy, habits, instincts. The list has been broken down into the six classes Linnaeus described for animals, Mammalia, Aves, Amphibia, Pisces, Insecta. These classes were created by studying the internal anatomy, as seen in his key. Warm, red blood Viviparous, Mammalia Oviparous, Aves Heart with 1 auricle,1 ventricle, cold, red blood Lungs voluntary, Amphibia External gills, Pisces Heart with 1 auricle,0 ventricles. Linnaeus described mammals as, Animals that suckle their young by means of lactiferous teats, in external and internal structure they resemble man, most of them are quadrupeds, and with man, their natural enemy, inhabit the surface of the Earth. The largest, though fewest in number, inhabit the ocean and they are areal, vocal, swift and light, and destitute of external ears, lips, teeth, scrotum, womb, bladder, epiglottis, corpus callosum and its arch, and diaphragm. They breathe by means of gills, which are united by a bony arch, swim by means of radiate fins. Many of them are without a head, and most of them without feet. They are principally distinguished by their tentacles, by the Ancients they were not improperly called imperfect animals, as being destitute of ears, nose, head, eyes and legs, and are therefore totally distinct from Insects. In addition to repeating the species he had listed in his Species Plantarum. The species from Species Plantarum were numbered sequentially, while the new species were labelled with letters, new plant species described in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae include, The original 1758 Systema Naturae Linnaeus 1758 Classification of Animals on the Taxonomicon
11.
Synonym (taxonomy)
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For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies. This name is no longer in use, it is now a synonym of the current scientific name which is Picea abies, unlike synonyms in other contexts, in taxonomy a synonym is not interchangeable with the name of which it is a synonym. In taxonomy, synonyms are not equals, but have a different status, for any taxon with a particular circumscription, position, and rank, only one scientific name is considered to be the correct one at any given time. A synonym cannot exist in isolation, it is always an alternative to a different scientific name, given that the correct name of a taxon depends on the taxonomic viewpoint used a name that is one taxonomists synonym may be another taxonomists correct name. Synonyms may arise whenever the same taxon is described and named more than once, independently. They may also arise when existing taxa are changed, as when two taxa are joined to one, a species is moved to a different genus. To the general user of scientific names, in such as agriculture, horticulture, ecology, general science. A synonym is a name that was used as the correct scientific name but which has been displaced by another scientific name. Thus Oxford Dictionaries Online defines the term as a name which has the same application as another. In handbooks and general texts, it is useful to have mentioned as such after the current scientific name. Synonyms used in this way may not always meet the strict definitions of the synonym in the formal rules of nomenclature which govern scientific names. Changes of scientific name have two causes, they may be taxonomic or nomenclatural, a name change may be caused by changes in the circumscription, position or rank of a taxon, representing a change in taxonomic, scientific insight. A name change may be due to purely nomenclatural reasons, that is, based on the rules of nomenclature, the earliest such name is called the senior synonym, while the later name is the junior synonym. One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published name, synonyms are important because if the earliest name cannot be used, then the next available junior synonym must be used for the taxon. Objective synonyms refer to taxa with the type and same rank. For example, John Edward Gray published the name Antilocapra anteflexa in 1855 for a species of pronghorn, however, it is now commonly accepted that his specimen was an unusual individual of the species Antilocapra americana published by George Ord in 1815. Ords name thus takes precedence, with Antilocapra anteflexa being a subjective synonym. Objective synonyms are common at the level of genera, because for various reasons two genera may contain the type species, these are objective synonyms
12.
Leafcutter ant
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Leafcutter ants, a non-generic name, are any of 47 species of leaf-chewing ants belonging to the two genera Atta and Acromyrmex. These species of tropical, fungus-growing ants are all endemic to South and Central America, Mexico, Leafcutter ants can carry more than 5000 times their body weight and cut and process fresh vegetation to serve as the nutritional substrate for their fungal cultivars. Acromyrmex and Atta ants have much in common anatomically, however, Atta ants have three pairs of spines and a smooth exoskeleton on the upper surface of the thorax, while Acromyrmex ants have four pairs and a rough exoskeleton. Next to humans, leafcutter ants form the largest and most complex animal societies on Earth, winged females and males leave their respective nests en masse and engage in a nuptial flight known as the revoada. Each female mates with males to collect the 300 million sperm she needs to set up a colony. Once on the ground, the female loses her wings and searches for an underground lair in which to found her colony. The success rate of young queens is very low. To start her own garden, the queen stores bits of the parental fungus garden mycelium in her infrabuccal pocket. In a mature leafcutter colony, ants are divided into castes, based mostly on size, Acromyrmex and Atta exhibit a high degree of biological polymorphism, four castes being present in established colonies—minims, minors, mediae, and majors. Majors are also known as soldiers or dinergates, Atta ants are more polymorphic than Acromyrmex, meaning comparatively less difference occurs in size from the smallest to largest types of Acromymex. Minims are the smallest workers, and tend to the brood or care for the fungus gardens. Head width is less than 1 mm, minors are slightly larger than minima workers, and are present in large numbers in and around foraging columns. These ants are the first line of defense and continuously patrol the surrounding terrain, head width is around 1. 8–2.2 mm. Mediae are the generalized foragers, which cut leaves and bring the leaf fragments back to the nest. The largest soldiers may have body lengths up to 16 mm. Their societies are based on an ant-fungus mutualism, and different species of ants use different species of fungus, the ants actively cultivate their fungus, feeding it with freshly cut plant material and keeping it free from pests and molds. This mutualistic relationship is further augmented by another symbiotic partner, a bacterium that grows on the ants and secretes chemicals, essentially, leaf cutter ants are sensitive enough to adapt to the fungis reaction to different plant material, apparently detecting chemical signals from the fungus. If a particular type of leaf is toxic to the fungus, the only two other groups of insects to use fungus-based agriculture are ambrosia beetles and termites. The fungus cultivated by the adults is used to feed the ant larvae, the fungus needs the ants to stay alive, and the larvae need the fungus to stay alive, so the mutualism is obligatory
13.
Formica
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Formica is a genus of ants of the family Formicidae, commonly known as wood ants, mound ants, thatching ants, and field ants. Formica is the genus of the Formicidae, and of the subfamily Formicinae. The type species of genus Formica is the European red wood ant Formica rufa, ants of this genus tend to be between 4 and 8 mm long. As the name wood ant implies, many Formica species live in wooded areas where no shortage of material exists with which they can thatch their mounds, one shade-tolerant species is F. lugubris. However, sunlight is important to most Formica species, and colonies rarely survive for any period in deeply shaded. The majority of species, especially outside the F. rufa species group, are inhabitants of open woodlands or treeless grassland or shrubland. In North America, at least, these habitats had a history of frequent landscape-scale fires that kept them open before European settlement. Conversion to agriculture and fire suppression have reduced the abundance of most American Formica species, however, at least a few Formica species may be found in a wide range of habitats from cities to seasides to grasslands to swamps to forests of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. In more suburban landscapes, they tend to nest near structures such as sidewalks, fences, such as F. rufa often have a considerable effect on their environments. They maintain large populations of aphids on the secretions of which feed. They also prey on other insects, in fact in many countries they are introduced in forests to control tree pests, such as swains jack pine sawfly and eastern tent caterpillars in North America. Formica nests are of different types from simple shaft-and-chamber excavations in soil with a small crater or turret of soil above to large mounds, under stones or logs. The genus is abundant in both the Nearctic and Palearctic regions, due to their relatively large size and diurnal activity, they are among the more commonly seen ants in northern North America. Some species, including F. rufa, which is common in Southern England, make large, visible thatch nests of dry plant stems, leaves, or conifer needles, most Formica species are polygynous, and some are polydomous. Queens may be singly or multiply mated, and may or may not be related and they can be relatively large, F. rufa workers can reach a maximum length around 10 mm. The eastern US species F. dolosa and the western F. ravida may be slightly longer, ants are eusocial organisms - the individuals of the species work together to survive, produce the next generation, and accomplish tasks which cannot be accomplished alone. Unlike other ants, the genus Formica does not have separate castes, for example, F. selysi, a species native to floodplains, has developed a method to deal with flooding. Individual ants come together to form a raft to survive the flood
14.
Johan Christian Fabricius
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Johan Christian Fabricius was a Danish zoologist, specialising in Insecta, which at that time included all arthropods, insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. Johan Christian Fabricius was born on 7 January 1745 at Tønder in the Duchy of Schleswig and he studied at the gymnasium at Altona and entered the University of Copenhagen in 1762. Later the same year he travelled together with his friend and relative Johan Zoëga to Uppsala, on his return, he started work on his Systema entomologiæ, which was finally published in 1775. Throughout this time, he remained dependent on subsidies from his father, during his time in Kiel, Fabricius repeatedly travelled to London in the summer to study the collections of British collectors, such as Joseph Banks and Dru Drury. On hearing of the British attack on Copenhagen in 1807, Fabricius returned to Kiel and he died on the 3rd of March 1808, at the age of 63. His daughter died in an accident in Paris, but he was survived by two sons, who studied medicine. Fabricius is considered one of the greatest entomologists of the 18th century and he was a greater observer of insects than his more botanically-minded mentor, Carl Linnaeus. Fabricius named 9,776 species of insects, compared to Linnaeus tally of around 3,000 and he identified many species of Tenebrionidae from the Egyptian Sinai on the basis of other entomologists collections. Fabricius added two distinct areas to the classification system and he considers both artificial and natural characteristics. Artificial characteristics allow for the determination of a species, and natural ones allow for the relationship to other genera, the evolutionary ideas of Fabricius are not as well known. He believed that new species could be formed by the hybridization of existing species and he also has been called the Father of Lamarckism because of his belief that new species can form from morphological adaptation. This agrees with Lamarcks theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, in contrast to Linnaeus classification of the insects, which was based primarily on the number of wings, and their form, Fabricius used the form of the mouthparts to discriminate the orders. He stated those whose nourishment and biology are the same, must then belong to the same genus, Fabricius system remains the basis of insect classification today, although the names he proposed are not. Fabricius also foresaw that the male genitalia would provide useful characters for systematics, Fabricius was the first to divide the Staphylinidae, which Linnaeus had considered a single genus that he called Staphylinus, establishing in 1775 the genus Paederus. He also described 77 species of Staphylinidae and his major works on systematic entomology were, Systema entomologiæ Genera insectorum Species insectorum. Fabricius also wrote a few works on economics, although these are less important than his zoological works. They include Begyndelsesgrundene i de økonomiske Videnskaber, Polizeischriften and Von der Volksvermehrung, prominent Danish Scientists through the Ages. University Library of Copenhagen 450th Anniversary, levin & Munksgaard, Copenhagen. Complete and many supported by images
15.
William Morton Wheeler
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William Morton Wheeler was an American entomologist, myrmecologist and Harvard professor. William Morton Wheeler was born on March 19,1865 to parents Julius Morton Wheeler and Caroline Georgiana Wheeler in Milwaukee, Wheeler attended public school, but he was transferred to a local German academy due to persistently bad behavior, which was known for its extreme discipline. After he completed his courses in the German academy, he attended a German normal school, in both institutions, Wheeler was trained in a variety of subjects, he was given training in languages, philosophy and science. By this time, he could read fluently in French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, while he was a student at the German academy, Wheeler would frequently observe the old museum of natural history at the institution. Wheeler, who had familiarized himself with the museum since childhood, volunteered to spend the nights in helping to unpack, impressed by his enthusiasm, Ward offered Wheeler a job in his Rochester, New York establishment. His first duties were to identify and list birds and mammals, in 1885, Wheeler returned to Milwaukee to teach German and physiology at a high school. At the time, George W. Peckham was the principal of the school, in which Wheeler, Wheeler collaborated with some of Peckhams published papers by illustrating the palpi and epigynes of spiders, and by assisting him and his wife with their field work on wasps. Wheeler was also under the influence of professors C. O, Whitman and Dr. William Pattern, who were embryologists at the Allis Lake Laboratory in Milwaukee. He was inspired by Pattern to study insect embryology and did so for several years, during this time, Wheeler left the high school in 1887 and become a custodian at Milwaukee Public Museum, a position he held until 1890. He studied embryology at home and after hours, in which he had set up a small laboratory. He left Milwaukee after leaving the museum to assist Whitman at Clark University, at the same time, Wheeler commenced his work on insects and published around 10 entomological papers, which presented himself as a candidate for the degree of Ph. D. After receiving a call from the University of Chicago, Whitman subsequently accepted their offer and he held this position until 1897, where he became the assistant professor in his chosen field. Before he began his duties at Chicago, Wheeler was given a years absence, there, he first spent time at the Zoological Institute at the University of Wiirzburg as a student, and also at the Naples Zoological Station. Enamoured by the fauna of Naples, Wheeler studied the sex life of Myzostoma and his monograph on Myzostoma was published in 1897 by professor E. Van Beneden in the Archives de Biologie. Wheeler returned to Chicago in 1894 and was a teacher of embryology for five years and he continued to publish more papers, half of which involved insects. Wheeler married his wife Dora Bay Emerson in 1898, where they met each other in Chicago previously. In 1899, he was offered the Professorship In Zoology following the death of professor Norman of the University of Texas, there, he took the opportunity to reorganize the department as professor of zoology. He remained there until 1903, but during period was when Wheeler developed an interest in the behavior
16.
Type species
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A similar concept is used for suprageneric groups called a type genus. In botanical nomenclature, these terms have no standing under the code of nomenclature. In botany, the type of a name is a specimen which is also the type of a species name. The species name that has that type can also be referred to as the type of the genus name, names of genus and family ranks, the various subdivisions of those ranks, and some higher-rank names based on genus names, have such types. In bacteriology, a species is assigned for each genus. Every named genus or subgenus in zoology, whether or not currently recognized as valid, is associated with a type species. In practice, however, there is a backlog of untypified names defined in older publications when it was not required to specify a type, a type species is both a concept and a practical system that is used in the classification and nomenclature of animals. The type species represents the species and thus definition for a particular genus name. In the Glossary, type species is defined as The nominal species that is the type of a nominal genus or subgenus. The type species permanently attaches a formal name to a genus by providing just one species within that genus to which the name is permanently linked. The species name in turn is fixed, in theory, to a type specimen, for example, the type species for the land snail genus Monacha is Monacha cartusiana. That genus is placed within the family Hygromiidae. The type genus for that family is the genus Hygromia, the concept of the type species in zoology was introduced by Pierre André Latreille. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature states that the name of the type species should always be cited. It gives an example in Article 67.1, Astacus marinus Fabricius,1775 was later designated as the type species of the genus Homarus, thus giving it the name Homarus marinus. However, the species of Homarus should always be cited using its original name. 3, the type of the genus name Elodes is quoted as the type of the species name Hypericum aegypticum, Glossary of scientific naming Genetypes – genetic sequence data from type specimens. Holotype Paratype Principle of Typification Type Type genus
17.
Ancient Greek
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Ancient Greek includes the forms of Greek used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around the 9th century BC to the 6th century AD. It is often divided into the Archaic period, Classical period. It is antedated in the second millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Hellenistic phase is known as Koine. Koine is regarded as a historical stage of its own, although in its earliest form it closely resembled Attic Greek. Prior to the Koine period, Greek of the classic and earlier periods included several regional dialects, Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers. It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance. This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical phases of the language, Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language, divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic, Aeolic, Arcadocypriot, some dialects are found in standardized literary forms used in literature, while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms, homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek used in the epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic, the origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period and they have the same general outline, but differ in some of the detail. The invasion would not be Dorian unless the invaders had some relationship to the historical Dorians. The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, the Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people—Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians, each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Often non-west is called East Greek, Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric, Southern Peloponnesus Doric, and Northern Peloponnesus Doric. The Lesbian dialect was Aeolic Greek and this dialect slowly replaced most of the older dialects, although Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language, which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek, by about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosized into Medieval Greek
18.
Neotropical realm
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The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earths land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas, in biogeography, the Neotropic or Neotropical realm is one of the eight terrestrial realms. The realm also includes temperate southern South America, in contrast, the Neotropical Floristic Kingdom excludes southernmost South America, which instead is placed in the Antarctic kingdom. The Neotropic is delimited by similarities in fauna or flora and its fauna and flora are distinct from the Nearctic because of the long separation of the two continents. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama joined the two continents two to three years ago, precipitating the Great American Interchange, an important biogeographical event. These rainforest ecoregions are one of the most important reserves of biodiversity on Earth and these rainforests are also home to a diverse array of indigenous peoples, who to varying degrees persist in their autonomous and traditional cultures and subsistence within this environment. Nevertheless, amidst these declining circumstances this vast reservoir of human diversity continues to survive, in South America alone, some 350–400 indigenous languages and dialects are still living, in about 37 distinct language families and a further number of unclassified and isolate languages. Many of these languages and their cultures are also endangered, laurel forest and other cloud forest are subtropical and mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. Tropical rainforest, tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests are highlight in Southern North America, Amazonia, Caribbean, Central America, Northern Andes, the bioregion also includes tropical savanna and tropical dry forest ecoregions. Eastern South America includes the Caatinga xeric shrublands of northeastern Brazil, the broad Cerrado grasslands and savannas of the Brazilian Plateau, and the Pantanal and Chaco grasslands. The diverse Atlantic forests of eastern Brazil are separated from the forests of Amazonia by the Caatinga and Cerrado, the Orinoco is a region of humid forested broadleaf forest and wetland primarily comprising the drainage basin for the Orinoco River and other adjacent lowland forested areas. This region includes most of Venezuela and parts of Colombia and these magnificent rainforests are endangered by extensive logging and their replacement by fast-growing non-native pines and eucalyptus. After the final breakup of the Gondwana about 110 million years ago, South America was separated from Africa and drifted north, the long-term effect of the exchange was the extinction of many South American species, mostly by outcompetition by northern species. 31 bird families are endemic to the Neotropical realm, over twice the number of any other realm and they include tanagers, rheas, tinamous, curassows, antbirds, ovenbirds, and toucans. Bird families originally unique to the Neotropics include hummingbirds and wrens, Neotropical fishes include more than 5,700 species, and represent at least 66 distinct lineages in continental freshwaters. The well-known red-bellied piranha is endemic to the Neotropic realm, occupying a larger area than any other piranha species. Plant families that originated in the Neotropic include Bromeliaceae, Cannaceae and Heliconiaceae, historical Biogeography of Neotropical Freshwater Fishes. 424 pp. ISBN 978-0-520-26868-5 Bequaert, Joseph C, an Introductory Study of Polistes in the United States and Canada with Descriptions of Some New North and South American Forms
19.
Amazon basin
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The Amazon basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries. The Amazon drainage basin covers an area of about 7,500,000 km2 and it is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela. Most of the basin is covered by the Amazon Rainforest, also known as Amazonia, with a 5,500,000 km2 area of dense tropical forest, this is the largest rainforest in the world. The Amazon River rises in the Andes Mountains at the west of the basin with its tributary the Marañón River in Peru. It is usually considered to be the second longest river in the world, however, a team of Brazilian scientists has claimed that the Amazon is the longest river in the world. It covers about 6,400 km before draining into the Atlantic Ocean, the Amazon and its tributaries form the largest volume of water. The Amazon accounts for about 20% of the water carried to the oceans by rivers. Some of the Amazon rainforests are deforested because of the increasing of cattle ranches, the highest point in the watershed of the Amazon is the peak of Yerupajá at 6,635 m. The Amazon basin formerly flowed west to Pacific Ocean until the Andes formed, politically the basin is divided into the Brazilian Amazônia Legal, the Peruvian Amazon, the Amazon region of Colombia and parts of Bolivia, Ecuador and the Venezuelan state of Amazonas. Plant growth is dense and its variety of inhabitants is comparatively high due to the heavy rainfall. Little sunlight reaches the ground due to the roof canopy by plants. The ground remains dark and damp and only shade tolerant vegetation will grow here, orchids and bromeliads exploit trees and other plants to get closer to the sunlight. They grow hanging onto the branches or tree trunks with aerial roots, not as parasites, species of tropical trees native to the Amazon include Brazil nut, rubber tree and Assai palm. More than 1,400 species of mammals are found in the Amazon and its larger mammals include the jaguar, ocelot, capybara and South American tapir. About 1500 bird species inhabit the Amazon Basin, the biodiversity of the Amazon and the sheer number of diverse bird species is given by the number of different bird families that reside in these humid forests. An example of such would be the family, to which the Guianan cock-of-the-rock belong. Birds such as toucans, and hummingbirds are found here. Macaws are famous for gathering by the hundreds along the cliffs of the Amazon River
20.
OCLC
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The Online Computer Library Center is a US-based nonprofit cooperative organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the worlds information and reducing information costs. It was founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the largest online public access catalog in the world. OCLC is funded mainly by the fees that libraries have to pay for its services, the group first met on July 5,1967 on the campus of the Ohio State University to sign the articles of incorporation for the nonprofit organization. The group hired Frederick G. Kilgour, a former Yale University medical school librarian, Kilgour wished to merge the latest information storage and retrieval system of the time, the computer, with the oldest, the library. The goal of network and database was to bring libraries together to cooperatively keep track of the worlds information in order to best serve researchers and scholars. The first library to do online cataloging through OCLC was the Alden Library at Ohio University on August 26,1971 and this was the first occurrence of online cataloging by any library worldwide. Membership in OCLC is based on use of services and contribution of data, between 1967 and 1977, OCLC membership was limited to institutions in Ohio, but in 1978, a new governance structure was established that allowed institutions from other states to join. In 2002, the structure was again modified to accommodate participation from outside the United States. As OCLC expanded services in the United States outside of Ohio, it relied on establishing strategic partnerships with networks, organizations that provided training, support, by 2008, there were 15 independent United States regional service providers. OCLC networks played a key role in OCLC governance, with networks electing delegates to serve on OCLC Members Council, in early 2009, OCLC negotiated new contracts with the former networks and opened a centralized support center. OCLC provides bibliographic, abstract and full-text information to anyone, OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat—the OCLC Online Union Catalog, the largest online public access catalog in the world. WorldCat has holding records from public and private libraries worldwide. org, in October 2005, the OCLC technical staff began a wiki project, WikiD, allowing readers to add commentary and structured-field information associated with any WorldCat record. The Online Computer Library Center acquired the trademark and copyrights associated with the Dewey Decimal Classification System when it bought Forest Press in 1988, a browser for books with their Dewey Decimal Classifications was available until July 2013, it was replaced by the Classify Service. S. The reference management service QuestionPoint provides libraries with tools to communicate with users and this around-the-clock reference service is provided by a cooperative of participating global libraries. OCLC has produced cards for members since 1971 with its shared online catalog. OCLC commercially sells software, e. g. CONTENTdm for managing digital collections, OCLC has been conducting research for the library community for more than 30 years. In accordance with its mission, OCLC makes its research outcomes known through various publications and these publications, including journal articles, reports, newsletters, and presentations, are available through the organizations website. The most recent publications are displayed first, and all archived resources, membership Reports – A number of significant reports on topics ranging from virtual reference in libraries to perceptions about library funding
21.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
22.
Wikidata
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Wikidata is a collaboratively edited knowledge base operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is intended to provide a source of data which can be used by Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. This is similar to the way Wikimedia Commons provides storage for files and access to those files for all Wikimedia projects. Wikidata is powered by the software Wikibase, Wikidata is a document-oriented database, focused on items. Each item represents a topic and is identified by a number, prefixed with the letter Q—for example. This enables the basic information required to identify the topic the item covers to be translated without favouring any language, information is added to items by creating statements. Statements take the form of pairs, with each statement consisting of a property. The creation of the project was funded by donations from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, at this time, only the first phase was available. Historically, a Wikipedia article would include a list of links, being links to articles on the same topic in other editions of Wikipedia. Initially, Wikidata was a repository of interlanguage links. No Wikipedia language editions were able to access Wikidata, so they needed to continue to maintain their own lists of interlanguage links, on 14 January 2013, the Hungarian Wikipedia became the first to enable the provision of interlanguage links via Wikidata. This functionality was extended to the Hebrew and Italian Wikipedias on 30 January, to the English Wikipedia on 13 February, on 23 September 2013, phase 1 went live on Wikimedia Commons. The first aspects of the second phase were deployed on 4 February 2013, the values were initially limited to two data types, with more data types to follow later. The first new type, string, was deployed on 6 March, the ability of the various language editions of Wikipedia to access data added to Wikidata as part of phase two was rolled out progressively between 27 March and 25 April 2013. On 16 September 2015, Wikidata began allowing so-called arbitrary access, for example, in the past the article about Berlin you could not access data about Germany, but with arbitrary access it could. On 27 April 2016 arbitrary access was activated on Wikimedia Commons, phase 3 will involve database querying and the creation of lists based on data stored on Wikidata. As of October 2016 two tools for querying Wikidata were available, AutoList and PetScan, additionally to a public SPARQL endpoint, there is concern that the project is being influenced by lobbying companies, PR professionals and search engine optimizers. As of December 2015, according to Wikimedia statistics, half of the information in Wikidata is unsourced, another 30% is labeled as having come from Wikipedia, but with no indication as to which article
23.
Wikispecies
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Wikispecies is a wiki-based online project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aim is to create a free content catalogue of all species. Jimmy Wales stated that editors are not required to fax in their degrees, Wikispecies is available under the GNU Free Documentation License and CC BY-SA3.0. Benedikt Mandl co-ordinated the efforts of people who are interested in getting involved with the project. Databases were evaluated and the administrators contacted, some of them have agreed on providing their data for Wikispecies, the board of directors of the Wikimedia Foundation voted by 4 to 0 in favor of the establishment of a Wikispecies. The project was launched in August 2004 and is hosted at species. wikimedia. org and it was officially merged to a sister project of Wikimedia Foundation on September 14,2004. On October 10,2006, the project exceeded 75,000 articles, on May 20,2007, the project exceeded 100,000 articles with a total of 5,495 registered users. On September 8,2008, the project exceeded 150,000 articles with a total of 9,224 registered users, on October 23,2011, the project reached 300,000 articles. On June 16,2014, the project reached 400,000 articles, on January 7,2017, the project reached 500,000 articles. Wikispecies has disabled local upload and asks users to use images from Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies does not allow the use of content that does not conform to a free license
24.
ARKive
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Its current priority is the completion of audio-visual profiles for the c.17,000 species on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The project is an initiative of Wildscreen, a UK-registered educational charity, the technical platform was created by Hewlett Packard, as part of the HP Labs Digital Media Systems research programme. It is a member of the Institutional Council of the Encyclopedia of Life, two ARKive layers for Google Earth, featuring endangered species and species in the Gulf of Mexico have been produced by Google Earth Outreach. The first of these was launched in April 2008 by Wildscreens Patron, parsons never lived to see the fruition of the project, succumbing to cancer in November 2002 at the age of 70. He believed the records could be a force in building environmental awareness by bringing scientific names to life. With an initial capacity of up to 74 terabytes of data, using redundant hardware, Media is digitised to the highest available quality without compression and encoded to open standards. A prototype site was online as early as April 1999, there were several design iterations before the formal launch. By January 2006, the database had grown to 2,000 species,15,000 still images, by 2010, over 5,500 donors had contributed 70,000 film clips and photos of more than 12,000 species. The site was Sunday Times website of the year for 2005
25.
Encyclopedia of Life
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The Encyclopedia of Life is a free, online collaborative encyclopedia intended to document all of the 1.9 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing databases and from contributions by experts and non-experts throughout the world and it aims to build one infinitely expandable page for each species, including video, sound, images, graphics, as well as text. In addition, the Encyclopedia incorporates content from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, the project was initially backed by a US$50 million funding commitment, led by the MacArthur Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, who provided US$20 million and US$5 million, respectively. The project was led by Jim Edwards and the development team by David Patterson. Today, participating institutions and individual donors continue to support EOL through financial contributions, EOL went live on 26 February 2008 with 30,000 entries. The site immediately proved to be popular, and temporarily had to revert to demonstration pages for two days when it was overrun by traffic from over 11 million views it received. The site relaunched on 5 September 2011 with a redesigned interface, eOLv2 is redesigned to enhance usability and encourage contributions and interactions among users. The product is also internationalized with interfaces provided for English, German, Spanish, French, Galician, Serbian, Macedonian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean and Ukrainian language speakers. On 16 January 2014, EOL launched TraitBank, a searchable, open digital repository for organism traits, measurements, interactions, information about many species is already available from a variety of sources, in particular about the megafauna. Gathering currently available data on all 1.9 million species will take about 10 years, as of September 2011, EOL had information on more than 700,000 species available, along with more than 600,000 photos and millions of pages of scanned literature. The initial focus has been on living species but will later include extinct species, as the discovery of new species is expected to continue, the encyclopedia will grow continuously. The goal of EOL is to serve as a resource for the public, enthusiastic amateurs, educators, students. The Encyclopedia of Life has content partners around the world who share information through the EOL platform, including Wikipedia and its interface is translated at translatewiki. net. The Encyclopedia of Life – Introductory video on YouTube from May 2007
26.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility
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The Global Biodiversity Information Facility is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by institutions from around the world. Data available through the GBIF portal are primarily distribution data on plants, animals, fungi, and microbes for the world, the mission of the Global Biodiversity information Facility is to facilitate free and open access to biodiversity data worldwide to underpin sustainable development. ABCD Schema Atlas of Living Australia Darwin Core Global biodiversity Pacific Biodiversity Information Forum GBIF website Short description of GBIF
27.
INaturalist
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Observations may be added via the website or from a mobile application. The observations provide valuable data to a variety of scientific research projects, museums, botanic gardens, parks. Users of iNaturalist have contributed four million observations since its founding in 2008. INaturalist. org began in 2008 as a UC Berkeley School of Information Masters final project of Nate Agrin, Jessica Kline, Nate Agrin and Ken-ichi Ueda continued work on the site with Sean McGregor, a web developer. In 2011, Ueda began collaboration with Scott Loarie, a fellow at Stanford University. Ueda and Loarie are the current co-directors of iNaturalist. org, on April 24,2014 iNaturalist. org merged with the California Academy of Sciences In 2014, iNaturalist celebrated its one millionth observation. The iNaturalist platform is based on crowdsourcing of data, users of iNaturalist can submit observations of organisms in the form of photographs, sound recordings, or visual sightings. Observations are either casual or research grade, and research grade observations are incorporated into online databases to be utilizable for scientists, iNaturalist is the preferred application for crowd-sourced biodiversity data in Mexico. As of 28 January 2017, the iNaturalist community consisted of almost 400,000 users contributing over 4,300,000 observations of plants, animals, users have created and contributed to over 9000 different projects, spanning hundreds of themes. Project examples include taxa- and location-specific bioblitzes, roadkill observations, animal tracks, the US National Park Service partnered with iNaturalist to record observations from the 2016 National Parks BioBlitz. That project exceeded 100,000 observations in August 2016, list of citizen science projects Official website iNaturalist on Vimeo Introducing iNaturalist by Suzanne Cadwell
28.
Integrated Taxonomic Information System
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The Integrated Taxonomic Information System is an American partnership of federal agencies designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. The database draws from a community of taxonomic experts. Primary content staff are housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the primary focus of ITIS is North American species, but many groups are worldwide and ITIS continues to collaborate with other international agencies to increase its global coverage. ITIS provides a reference database of scientific and common names for species. As of May 2016, it contains over 839,000 scientific names, synonyms, and common names for terrestrial, marine, data presented in ITIS are considered public information, and may be freely distributed and copied, though appropriate citation is requested. ITIS is frequently used as the de facto source of data in biodiversity informatics projects. It presents the names in a classification that contains author, date, distributional. In addition, common names are available through ITIS in the official languages of the Americas. ITIS and its partner, Species 2000, cooperate to annually produce the Catalogue of Life. The Catalogue of Lifes goal was to complete the global checklist of 1.9 million species by 2011. As of May 2012, the Catalogue of Life has reached 1.4 million species—a major milestone in its quest to complete the first up-to-date comprehensive catalogue of all living organisms, ITIS and the Catalogue of Life are core to the Encyclopedia of Life initiative announced May 2007. EOL will be largely on various Creative Commons licenses. The newer material has been checked to higher standards of taxonomic credibility, biological taxonomy is not fixed, and opinions about the correct status of taxa at all levels, and their correct placement, are constantly revised as a result of new research. Many aspects of classification remain a matter of scientific judgment, the ITIS database is updated to take account of new research as it becomes available, and the information it yields is likely to represent a fair consensus of modern taxonomic opinion. Records within ITIS include information about how far it has been possible to check and its information should be checked against other sources where these are available, and against the primary research scientific literature where possible
29.
National Center for Biotechnology Information
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The National Center for Biotechnology Information is part of the United States National Library of Medicine, a branch of the National Institutes of Health. The NCBI is located in Bethesda, Maryland and was founded in 1988 through legislation sponsored by Senator Claude Pepper, the NCBI houses a series of databases relevant to biotechnology and biomedicine and is an important resource for bioinformatics tools and services. Major databases include GenBank for DNA sequences and PubMed, a database for the biomedical literature. Other databases include the NCBI Epigenomics database, all these databases are available online through the Entrez search engine. NCBI is directed by David Lipman, one of the authors of the BLAST sequence alignment program. He also leads a research program, including groups led by Stephen Altschul, David Landsman, Eugene Koonin, John Wilbur, Teresa Przytycka. NCBI is listed in the Registry of Research Data Repositories re3data. org, NCBI has had responsibility for making available the GenBank DNA sequence database since 1992. GenBank coordinates with individual laboratories and other databases such as those of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory. Since 1992, NCBI has grown to other databases in addition to GenBank. The NCBI assigns a unique identifier to each species of organism, the NCBI has software tools that are available by WWW browsing or by FTP. For example, BLAST is a sequence similarity searching program, BLAST can do sequence comparisons against the GenBank DNA database in less than 15 seconds. RAG2/IL2RG The NCBI Bookshelf is a collection of freely accessible, downloadable, some of the books are online versions of previously published books, while others, such as Coffee Break, are written and edited by NCBI staff. BLAST is a used for calculating sequence similarity between biological sequences such as nucleotide sequences of DNA and amino acid sequences of proteins. BLAST is a tool for finding sequences similar to the query sequence within the same organism or in different organisms. It searches the query sequence on NCBI databases and servers and post the results back to the browser in chosen format. Input sequences to the BLAST are mostly in FASTA or Genbank format while output could be delivered in variety of such as HTML, XML formatting. HTML is the output format for NCBIs web-page. Entrez is both indexing and retrieval system having data from sources for biomedical research
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