Scratchpads
“community tools for taxonomists”
Vincent S. Smith
Simon D. Rycroft & Dave Roberts

Macro scale taxonomy
The big picture of taxonomic research
Goal…
• Inventory the Earth’s species
• Document their relationships
• “Publish” these data
Data set…
• 1.8M described species (10M names)
• 300M pages (over last 250 years)
• 1.5-3B specimens
People…
• 4-6,000 scientists
• 30-40,000 amateurs
• Many more citizen scientists?

Micro scale taxonomy
The practice of taxonomic research
Parochial…
• Specialised
• Experts
• Fragmented & distributed
Methodological…
• Communities of practice
• Hard to record & update
• High output but low impact
Different…
• Data
• Interpretations
• Methods How do we integrate micro & macro taxonomy?