148 AROIDEANA, Vol. 31 A New Website for Araceae Taxonomy on www.cate-araceae.org A. Haigh, L Lay, S. J. Mayo, L Reynolds, and M. Sellaro Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, Surrey 1W9 3AE, U.K. [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; reynoldslm8@ yahoo.com; [email protected] J. Bogner Augsburger Str. 43a D - 86368 Gersthofen, Germany [email protected] P. C. Boyce Lot 12, Hillsdale Jalan Puncak Borneo Kota Padawan Kuching 93250 Sarawak, Malaysia [email protected] Thomas B. Croat, Michael H. Grayum, R. Keating, and C. Kostelac Missouri Botanical Garden P.O. Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166 [email protected]; [email protected]; Richard.keating@ mobot.org; [email protected] A. Hay National Herbarium of New South Wales Royal Botanic Gardens Mrs Macquaries Road Sydney, New South Wales 2000, Australia ajmhay@hotmaiLcom W. Hetterscheid Wageningen University Botanic Garden Generaa1 Foulkesweg 37 6703 BL Wageningen, Netherlands [email protected] M.Mora Department of Biological Sciences Box 870345 The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345, U.S.A. [email protected] Wong Sin Yeng [email protected] A. HAIGH ET Ai., 2008 149 ABSTRACT visions that there is great potential to make traditional taxonomy a much more excit­ The development and current progress ing, collective and dynamic activity than of the Cate-Araceae website is described ever before. But one common discovery and its relation to the aroid community that most E-Taxonomy websites make early discussed in the context of rapidly devel­ on is that without an interested community, oping initiatives to migrate traditional ready to focus on the web-delivered descriptive taxonomy onto the internet (E­ information, it is difficult to create the Taxonomy). desired inter-activity. Scientists who are engaged in this area all agree that the INTRODUCTION hardest job is not the technology, but The website of the International Aroid engaging the human community, Le. mak­ Society and its associated mailing list Aroid­ ing it attractive for taxonomists, natural I is a key achievement of the Society and its historians, plantspeople, ecologists, horti­ supporting community. It is a dynamic and culturists and anybody else who is inter­ attractive social space in which people who ested, to actually engage regularly with the are interested in aroids feel comfortable to website and turn it into a living breathing tell other people about their interests and community space. find out more, especially by just asking for The project described here - Cate­ help. The success of the site is very obvious Araceae - is thus a direct response to the in this respect and it is moreover a lasting existence of the aroid community that finds success. Everyone knows that there is just its expression through the lAS. If it suc­ ceeds, it will be because of the community one place on the internet - http://www. that the lAS has created and sustained. The aroid.orgl - where you can find out all idea for an additional website for aroids about aroids. It is easy to see that it isn't just focussing on formal species taxonomy the site but also the community that it links initially arose from discussions between together which is of great significance in Tom Croat (Missouri Botanical Garden) the context of the revolution that the and Simon Mayo (Royal Botanic Gardens internet is bringing about for biodiversity Kew) in 2003. They were primarily seeking studies, including taxonomy. a mechanism which would bring about a Getting taxonomy onto the internet is a more effective integration of effort between rapidly growing activity which is now aroid taxonomists dispersed around the being taken seriously by major biodiversity world - a means for collaboration, badly institutes around the world. The biggest needed for the big genera which are initiative to appear so far is the global-scale beyond the reach of anyone person to Encyclopedia of Life (EoL) (http://www. revise effectively. They reasoned that eol.orgl) project inspired by Prof. E.O. greater aggregation of the aroid taxonomic Wilson of Harvard University and now an experts was the key to providing high international consortium. All such projects quality information to support global facil­ argue that the prime task for taxonomists ities like Global Biodiversity Information today is to make taxonomy visible on the Facility (http://www.gbif.org/). Interna­ internet and transform classification into a tional Plant Names Index (http://www. "rolling" continual-update facility in which ipnLorgl), and many other such global information for species is available at a information projects, of which EoL is a mouse-click, in the most up-to-date form, more recent example. The first step in to everyone, all the time. Going even making this idea concrete was a project to further are those projects which aim to make an internet-accessible key to the make it possible for anyone to contribute to species of Philodendron, something never biodiversity websites and thus enrich them, previously attempted. Marcela Mora (Bo­ in much the same way as Wikipedia (http:// gota, now at the University of Alabama), www.wikipedia.org/).Itis clear from these led this project from 2005 with funding 150 AROIDEANA, Vol. 31 mainly from the Kew Latin America Re­ Kew and Imperial College London, later search Fellowships Programme (KLARF), replaced by the University of Oxford working both at Kew and Missouri Botan­ (http://www.cate-project.org). CATE has ical Garden before starting on her PhD created websites for two model groups, studies at Tuscaloosa in 2007. The logic of the Sphingidae (hawkmoths, http://www. this key-writing project was not only the cate-sphingidae.org) to represent the need to provide an identification tool of Animal Kingdom and the Araceae for some sort, but also a means to navigate the plants (http://www.cate-araceae.org).Be­ existing tangled knowledge of a very large sides bringing together comprehensive genus, to narrow down alternatives and taxonomic information for each family, establish groups of species and a geo­ the project's major goal is to build the graphical scope on which botanists could software framework needed to make it begin new projects of taxonomic revision; possible for the taxonomists to carry out i.e. the key as a research tool as well as a on-going revision of the uploaded infor­ service. mation. So the three ingredients of the The chance to set up a more ambitious project are: 1) create the initial information version of the original idea came with the for each species and mount it on the web; CATE project (Creating a Taxonomic 2) create the software tools to update and e-Science). CATE is a feasibility study for a change the content; 3) attract the taxonom­ particular view of how to deliver revision­ ic community to focus part of their revi­ ary taxonomy through the internet, first Sionary effort onto the website. articulated clearly by Charles Godfray (2002), a British evolutionary population THE ARACEAE WEBSITE biologist and entomologist. There are two key ideas in Godfray's vision. First is the Taxonomists have the most vital role in notion of peer-reviewed consensus taxon­ the CATE vision, particularly in proposing omy - that is, the cooperation of taxono­ changes, such as the addition of new mists to produce, maintain and update, on species or synonyms, which must be a permanent basis, a single agreed version published in hard copy before they can of the taxonomy of family-level taxa like be incorporated, because of the rules of the the Araceae. This is a response to a widely International Code of Botanical Nomencla­ expressed and urgent demand from many ture (McNeill et at., 2006). However, the sectors, including biodiversity and conser­ system will be open to anyone to make vation science, horticulture, forestry and contributions, for example, a distribution agronomy. The second point is continual record, images, previously unrecorded update: the websites need to focus the observations and so on. These can add taxonomic experts permanently on main­ significant taxonomic information to spe­ taining and developing the information cies treatments. content so that users can be sure of access Maintaining the quality of the informa­ to the current best scientific estimate of the tion content is important to the credibility family taxonomy. In order to achieve this, of the site. Contributions and proposals for of course, the taxonomic community has to change can be reviewed online by anyone; organize itself in such a way that this focus however, for more complex, technical or is achieved and maintained, and discover­ extensive material, moderators will be ing how to do this is a major challenge. asked to prepare reviews by the editorial Planning for CATE began in 2004 and group. The taxonomic revision on the funds from the UK's Natural Environment website will also be regularly versioned. Research Council (NERC) were granted in This means a time series in which the June 2005 for a three-year period. The current version replaces previous ones and project began later that year as a consor­ the old versions are dated and archived and tium led by the Natural History Museum remain available for consultation. Newly London, with the Royal Botanic Gardens accepted changes to the revision will thus A. HAIGH ET AL., 2008 151 be incorporated into the next version as pages in the genera Amm, Hapaline, part of an organized work flow. Any Pothos, Pothoidium, Pedicellamm and proposals that are not accepted by the Colocasia. By the end of 2008, there will editorial group will nevertheless be posted be full to reasonably full (depending on on the site, as alternative hypotheses and current knowledge) information for all attributed clearly to their authors.