A taxonomic information model for botanical databases: the IOPI Model

Abstract

Summary Berendsohn, W. G.: A taxonomic information model for botanical databases: the IOPI Model – Taxon 46: 283‐309. 1997. – ISSN 0040‐0262. A comprehensive information model for the recording of taxonomic data from literature and other sources is presented, which was devised for the Global Plant Checklist database project of the International Organisation of Plant Information (IOPI). The model is based on an approach using hierarchical decomposition of data areas into atomic data elements and – in parallel – abstraction into an entity relationship model. It encompasses taxa of all ranks, nothotaxa and hybrid formulae, “unnamed taxa”, cultivars, full synonymy, misapplied names, basionyms, nomenclatural data, and differing taxonomic concepts (potential taxa) as well as alternative taxonomies to any extent desired. The model was developed together with related models using a CASE (Computer Aided Software Engineering) tool. It can help designers of biological information systems to avoid the widely made error of over‐simplification of taxonomic data and the resulting loss in data accuracy and quality.

Formalizing Botanical Taxonomies

“…This implementation improves on prior attempts at implementing taxonomies which according to Berendsohn (1997) often suffer from "a frequent error of over-simplification of taxonomic data by non-taxonomist database designers" (quoted after Pullan et al (2000)). A first main achievement of Prometheus is a clear separation of the specimenbased classification and the nomenclature-based name hierarchy.…”

EPIDENDRA, the taxonomic databases by Jardín Botánico Lankester

“…The past debate on biological databases has mainly focused on the best model to be used in organizing the taxonomic data from literature and other sources to avoid over-simplification and to reflect the elasticity of taxonomy as well as alternative taxonomies (see, i.e., Berendsohn 1997, Conn 2003. Even though the "unofficial" adoption of one or more of the alternative taxonomies can not be avoided in the daily work, taxonomic information may become outdated very rapidly in the tropics, and this perhaps tends to reduce taxonomic decisions in the database system to a minimum.…”

An Information Model for the Representation of Multiple Biological Classifications

“…These are the Association of Systematics Collections (ASC) draft datamodel [4], the HICLAS model [5,9,15], the International Organization of Plant Information (IOPI) model [6,7], and the Prometheus model [12]. We will discuss each of these using an extended entity-relationship (ER) data modeling vocabulary and notation (Fig.…”