Match Algorithms for Scientific Names in FlorItaly, the Portal to the Flora of Italy

Abstract

Scientific names are not part of everyday language in any modern country, and their input as strings in a query system can be easily associated with typographical errors. While globally unique identifiers univocally address a taxon name, they can hardly be used for querying a database manually. Thus, matching algorithms are often used to overcome misspelled names in query systems in several data repositories worldwide. In order to improve users’ experience in the use of FlorItaly, the Portal to the Flora of Italy, a near match algorithm to resolve misspelled scientific names has been integrated in the query systems. In addition, a novel tool in FlorItaly, capable of rapidly aligning any list of names to the nomenclatural backbone provided by the national checklists, has been developed. This manuscript aims at describing the potential of these new tools.

Aggregation of Italian Lichen Data in ITALIC 7.0

“…The system includes a name-match tool [24] that operates in the query interfaces and/or as an independent instrument, allowing users to align any list of infrageneric taxon names to the nomenclature of ITALIC.…”

“…The query is key-insensitive, no jolly characters are required, and the string will be matched with any part of each taxon name (accepted names and synonyms) stored in the system. Furthermore, if no match is obtained, the system will make use of a near-match algorithm [24] to look for a match with a similar string and will output a list of text strings that the user can select for performing the query. The output of the taxon query interface is a list of taxa; by clicking on each taxon name, one can access its taxon page.…”

rWCVP: a companion R package for the World Checklist of Vascular Plants

“…(2020) and Conti et al . (2021) but developed specifically for the WCVP. It is derived from Bachman et al .…”

“…TaxaMatch; Rees, 2014). Here, we have implemented a multipass approach similar to those of Norman et al (2020) and Conti et al (2021) but developed specifically for the WCVP. It is derived from and includes both exact and fuzzy, or approximate, matching in a single wcvp_match_names function (illustrated in Fig.…”

PhyloSophos: a high-throughput scientific name mapping algorithm augmented with explicit consideration of taxonomic science

“…On the other hand, gnparser identifies semantic elements within scientific names such as abbreviations and authorship, and then processes them to provide the canonical form of the given input. These applications can be utilized to handle tasks related to scientific names, such as curating biodiversity information (Montgomery et al 2019; Conti et al 2021), thereby facilitating research that would otherwise require significant time to manually curate the data.…”