Modeling Taxon Concepts: A new approach to an old problem

Although the biodiversity informatics community has recognized and understood complexity of modeling information about scientific names associated taxonomic concepts for more than three decades, many original questions problems remain unresolved today. Because most data is anchored to names, these are governed by Codes nomenclature, effort progress focused on structures centered around rather concepts. But, as been well documented in standards communities (e.g., Berendsohn (1995), Patterson et al. (2010), Pyle (2021)), relationship between text-string scientific-name labels circumscribed conceptual taxa they intended represent highly imprecise. Many attempts have made develop models discrete, identifiable units which can be linked. However, none gained wide-spread adoption, often due inherent subjective interpretations degree expertise required define interpret individual – aspects that limit their practical scalability. Similarly, previous efforts taxon concept conflate properties circumscription, classification, resulting overloaded notions quickly become intractable. We describe an approach mirrors centuries actual practice, rooted fundamental Code-regulated leverage sources existing digital a structured, objective computable way. It isolates circumscription from those classification but enables algorithmic integration separate facets using consistent informatic structures.