On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, Robert A. (Bob) Morris wrote:

My feeling is that taxonomic hierarchy is best got by web applications from services such as ITIS or other web services offering XML. There is a large community of descriptive data consumers, e.g. field naturalists, that find taxonomic hierarchy generally uninteresting. IMO, trying to integrate it with descriptive data actually addresses a small group of applications at a cost of added complexity.

"There is a large community of descriptive data consumers, e.g. field naturalists, that find taxonomic hierarchy generally uninteresting."

Bob, this comment needs a little bit more explanation / discussion.

Without arguing _where_ the field naturalist and other consumers should get their taxonomic hierarchical information, I'd want to argue that such information is (should be!) anything but "uninteresting" to many (most?, all?) consumers, in their work of understanding who is present in their study worlds and why.

Having access to purported (evolutionary) relationships of their study organisms focuses a special, valuable, most "interesting" light on their studies. These users need to find these taxonomic relationships handily, somewhere. In that context, your question --Where?-- is probably a fair one to ask.

Peter