Integrated Taxonomic Information System

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The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is a joint project initiated in 1996 by various North American organizations to standardize and provide taxonomic information as a basis for ecosystem management and for measures to conserve biodiversity . The aim is to provide a publicly accessible database with reliable data for the names of the taxa and their hierarchical systematics . Be covered here plants , animals , fungi and microbes . Each taxonomic identifier is identified by a Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN), a unique, unchangeable numeric key . In December 2011, the database contained 548,014 entries.

ITIS partner projects are Species 2000 and GBIF . The taxonomic data from ITIS and Species 2000 , which are brought together in the Catalog of Life , serve as the basis of the Encyclopedia of Life , an online encyclopedia for the living things of the world.

Organizations involved

The starting point at the start of the project in 1996 was the database of the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . This database, also known as the NODC Taxonomic Code , contained 210,000 scientific names; the data quality was inconsistent. The name ITIS originally stood for Interagency Taxonomic Information System . Initially, only US organizations were involved:

Other organizations were later added, including a Canadian and a Mexican:

Taxonomic Serial Number

The Taxonomic Serial Number (TSN) is a unique, permanently valid, numeric key . For example, TSN 180092 is assigned to the scientific name of the species Homo sapiens . The TSN is deliberately not a speaking key , which means in particular that the numerical values ​​of the TSN do not allow any conclusions to be drawn about the systematic relationships of the taxa. This means that there is no need to change the TSN if a taxon is assigned differently, as long as there is no change in the scientific name.

A TSN identifies the combination of a scientific name and the associated taxon . On the one hand, this means that a separate TSN is assigned to each meaning of homonyms . On the other hand, it means that in the case of synonyms , different TSNs are also assigned.

The TSNs are assigned sequentially according to the order in which the scientific names are recorded in the database. All ranks up to the Reich are taken into account. For trivial names , however, there is no separate TSN, but trivial names can be assigned to the data record for a TSN in order to enable a search for this.

The spelling of a scientific name remains permanently unchanged. In the beginning, however, this rule was broken by correcting spelling mistakes in the data taken over from the previous system, the NDOC Taxonomic Code.

Data model

Every TSN, i.e. every combination of scientific name and taxon, is assigned to a different TSN. This assignment has exactly one of the following two meanings:

  1. a subordinate taxon is assigned to the directly superior taxon
  2. an invalid scientific name is assigned to the currently valid or common synonym

A rare exception to this rule is when there is no corresponding synonym for an invalid name to which it can be directly linked. In this case a TSN can also be linked to several others.

Each data record is assigned three attributes that document the data quality:

  • Record Credibility Rating : This indicates whether and to what extent the entry has been checked.
  • Latest Record Review : For ranks from the genre and higher, the year of the last review of the entry is given here.
  • Global Species Completeness : Also starting with the genus, this indicator expresses whether all subordinate species of this taxon are contained in the database.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b www.itis.gov: Background Information
  2. ^ Fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties: Using the taxonomic serial number (TSN) in international wildlife trade data: a role for CITES. Doha 2010, working paper submitted by Canada ( CoP15 Doc. 39 ( Memento of the original dated April 2, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note . ; PDF; 35 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cites.org
  3. ^ Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) , accessed January 6, 2012.
  4. ↑ a b www.itis.gov: Data Development History and Data Quality
  5. ↑ Homo sapiens at ITIS
  6. ↑ a b c d www.itis.gov: What is an Integrated Taxonomic Information System "TSN?" (PDF; 28 kB)
  7. ↑ For example, Iris is a genus of both irises and insects, in the first case the TSN is 43191 , in the second it is 666592
  8. ↑ www.itis.gov: Glossary of Terms Used in ITIS

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