Hello

- The main existing formats, if we count by the number of species covered, are not DELTA, or other Computer Taxonomists's inventions, they are the semi-formal formats of the existing floras in plain text, which contain the vast majority of existing species; - the priority is to put this existing material in XML (this can be done using standard parsing techniques); - we can then : - make queries using all the power of XPath - make all kinds of RDF statements on the species from the outside, e.g. an entomologist can, in an buterfly description, or any context, indicate that it is a pollinizator for some plant species (see Annex)

These techniques are in the straight line of the World Wide Web Consortium Recommandations. Using such RDF statements, it is also possible to add sets of characters à la DELTA.

So I propose to decouple the description form the specific taxonomic issues, such as finding keys applying to specific subsets of species, minimal sets of characters, etc. This is good design since no consensus can be quickly achieved on taxonomic issues, since researchers want to keep their freedom.

It seems that what the majority of botanists (and others biologists and the humanity in general) needs the most urgently, is a usable World Flora.

Moreover, having reference descriptions available as URI (Uniform Resource Identifiers) on the Web, allows different taxonomists researchers to link their formal descriptions to a common reference, and to become interoperable.

See much more details on the Worldwide Botanical Database project at : http://jmvanel.free.fr

P.S. Can somebody point me to documents on: XDELTA, NEXUS and XDF

Regards

Jean-Marc Vanel

ANNEX USING RDF statement and Xpointer to add information on a plant species

<rdf:RDF xml:lang="en" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:rdfs="http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/PR-rdf-schema-19990303#%22%3E

rdf:Description about="htpp://www.rbgkew.org.uk/Flora_Europaeae.xml#xptr(species[genus='Viola'][name='riviniana'])"

<pollinizator>Aglais urticae</pollinizator> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF>

Of course I give no guaranty on the entomological truth of this statement.