There is a concerted global effort to digitize biodiversity occurrence data from herbarium and museum collections that together offer an unparalleled archive of life on Earth over the past few centuries. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility provides the largest single gateway to these data. Since 2004 it has provided a single point of access to specimen data from databases of biological surveys and collections. Biologists now have rapid access to more than 120 million observations, for use in many biological analyses. We investigate the quality and coverage of data digitally available, from the perspective of a biologist seeking distribution data for spatial analysis on a global scale. We present an example of automatic verification of geographic data using distributions from the International Legume Database and Information Service to test empirically, issues of geographic coverage and accuracy. There are over 1/2 million records covering 31% of all Legume species, and 84% of these records pass geographic validation. These data are not yet a global biodiversity resource for all species, or all countries. A user will encounter many biases and gaps in these data which should be understood before data are used or analyzed. The data are notably deficient in many of the world's biodiversity hotspots. The deficiencies in data coverage can be resolved by an increased application of resources to digitize and publish data throughout these most diverse regions. But in the push to provide ever more data online, we should not forget that consistent data quality is of paramount importance if the data are to be useful in capturing a meaningful picture of life on Earth.

The massive development of biodiversity-related information systems on the Internet has created much that appears exciting but chaotic, a diversity to match biodiversity itself. This richness and the arrays of new sources are counterbalanced by the maddening difficulty in knowing what is where, or of comparing like with like. But quietly, behind the first waves of exuberance, biologists and computer scientists have started to pull together in a rising tide of coherence and organization. The fledgling field of biodiversity informatics looks set to deliver major advances that could turn the Internet into a giant global biodiversity information system.

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SUMMARYThis paper indicates one way in which taximetrics can contribute to the taxonomic work currently being carried out in herbaria and universities. Taximetric and orthodox studies of African species of Crotalaria L. (Leguminosae) carried out separately by the two authors produced classifications which were similar in essential features. It was possible to resolve twenty discrepancies between the two classifications which varied from the delimitation of major groupings to the placing of individual species and the treatment of outliers. In some cases Polhill's orthodox scheme was upheld and in others Bisby's taximetric results provided evidence for making improvements. The outcome was an amended classification for which the nomenclatural changes are set out.The authors suggest that parallel studies of this sort may prove one of the most useful contributions that taximetrics can make. Not only is maximum use made of both types of procedure but also such studies contribute to knowledge of the relative performance of the taximetric and orthodox procedures. Only when there is much more confidence and experience in using taximetric procedures will it be useful to apply them in situations where there is no immediate check from orthodox work.