Integrated Taxonomic Information System

The Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) is a partnershipcite web
title=ITIS Memorandum of Understanding
publisher=Integrated Taxonomic Information System
url=http://www.itis.gov/mou.html
accessdate=2008-04-04] designed to provide consistent and reliable information on the taxonomy of biological species. ITIS was originally formed in 1996 as an interagency group within the U.S. federal government, involving agencies from the Department of Commerce to the Smithsonian Institution. It has now become an international body, with Canadian and Mexican government agencies participating. 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.cite web
url=http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00857.x
title=Monitoring International Wildlife Trade with Coded Species Data
accessdate=2007-05-09
last=Coote
first=Lonny D, et al.
date=2008-02
publisher=Conservation Biology
doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00857.x]

Reference database

ITIS provides an automated reference database of scientific and common names for species. As of May 2008, it contains over 584,000 scientific names, synonyms, and common names for terrestrial, marine, and freshwater taxa from all biological kingdoms (animals, plants, fungi, and microbes). While the system does focus on North American species, it also includes many species not found in North America, especially among birds, fishes, amphibians, mammals, many reptiles, and several invertebrate animal groups.cite web
title=Data Development History and Data Quality
publisher=Integrated Taxonomic Information System
url=http://www.itis.gov/itis_primer.html
accessdate=2008-04-04] ITIS is frequently used as the "de facto" source of taxonomic data in biodiversity informatics projects.cite web
url=http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2105/6/48
title=A Taxonomic Search Engine: Federating taxonomic databases using web services
accessdate=2007-05-09
last=Page
first=D. M. R.
date=2005-04-09
publisher=BMC Bioinformatics
doi:10.1186/1471-2105-6-48]

ITIS couples each scientific name with a stable and unique taxonomic serial number TSN as the "common denominator" for accessing information on such issues as invasive species, declining amphibians, migratory birds, fishery stocks, pollinators, agricultural pests, and emerging diseases. It presents the names in a standard classification that contains author, date, distributional, and bibliographic information related to the names. In addition, common names are available through ITIS in the major official languages of the Americas (English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese).

Catalogue of life

ITIS and its international partner, Species 2000, cooperate to annually produce the Catalogue of Life, a checklist and index of the world’s species. The Catalogue of Life goal is to complete the global checklist of 1.8 million species by 2011.cite web
url=http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01063.x
title=Towards a collaborative, global infrastructure for biodiversity assessment
accessdate=2007-09
last=Guralnick
first=R. P., et al.
date=2007-09
publisher=Ecology Letters
doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2007.01063.x] As of April 2008, the Catalogue of Life has reached 1.1 million species—a major milestone in its quest to complete the first up-to-date comprehensive catalogue of all living organisms.cite press release
title= One Million Species Catalogue of Life launch
publisher= University of Reading
date= 2007-03-29
url= http://www.rdg.ac.uk/about/newsandevents/releases/PR4160.asp
accessdate= 2008-03-16] cite web
title=Species 2000 & ITIS Catalogue of Life: 2008 Annual Checklist. CD-ROM
accessdate=2008-04-01
last=Bisby
first=F. A., et al.
publisher= University of Reading
date= 2008-04
url=http://www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2008/
accessdate= 2008-04-01]

ITIS and the Catalogue of Life are core to the Encyclopedia of Life initiative announced May 2007. [cite news | url=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070509185847.htm | work=Science Daily | title=Leading Scientists Announce Creation Of Encyclopedia Of Life | date=May 9, 2007 Adapted from a Harvard University news release.] EOL will be built largely on various Creative Commons licenses [EOL Terms of use, http://www.eol.org/terms_of_use]

Legacy database

Of the 475,000+ (May 2008) scientific names in the current database, approximately 210,000 were inherited from the database formerly maintained by the National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC) of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).cite web| title=NODC Taxonomic Code
publisher=National Oceanographic Data Center
url=http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/General/CDR-detdesc/taxonomic-v8.html
accessdate=2008-04-04] cite web
title=Data Development History and Data Quality
publisher=Integrated Taxonomic Information System
url=http://www.itis.gov/itis_primer.html
accessdate=2008-04-04] The newer material has been checked to higher standards of taxonomic credibility, and over half of the original material has been checked and improved to the same standard.cite web
title=Data Development History and Data Quality
publisher=Integrated Taxonomic Information System
url=http://www.itis.gov/itis_primer.html
accessdate=2008-04-04]

tandards

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 will always 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 verify them. Its information should be checked against other sources where these are available, and against the primary research scientific literature where possible.

Member agencies

*United States Department of Agriculture
*National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
*United States Geological Survey
*Smithsonian Institution
*United States Environmental Protection Agency
*National Biological Information Infrastructure
*Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
*NatureServe
*National Park Service
*Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad (CONABIO)

References

External links

* [http://www.itis.gov/ Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)]
* [http://www.cbif.gc.ca/pls/itisca/taxaget?p_ifx=cbif Canada Interface: Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS*CA)]
* [http://siit.conabio.gob.mx Mexico Interface: Sistema Integrado de Información Taxonómica (SIIT*MX)]
* [http://www.cbif.gc.ca/pls/itisca/taxaget?p_ifx=cria&p_lang=pt Brasil Interface: Sistema Integrado de Informação Taxonômica - (SIIT*Brasil)]

ee also

*Catalogue of life
*Encyclopedia of Life
*Wikispecies
*CultureSheet Project