Format: ORAL

Alan Elliott1, Roger Hyam1, Mark Watson1

1 Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Scotland, UK

The World Flora Online (WFO) was developed in response to the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation and the need for suitable floristic data to support conservation. WFO currently contains about 1.6 million plant names, with associated concepts, and over 600,000 pieces of descriptive content. WFO includes a global consensus plant classification, developed through merging and incorporating multiple data sources, augmented by input from WFOs Taxonomic Expert Networks (TENs). TENs are key to achieving a robust, curated, consensus classification. These social networks are open groups of taxonomic specialists providing relevant taxonomic and nomenclatural expertise to resolve issues and maintain the classification. TENs vary in size, structure, and function. Some are new while others are built on existing collaborations. The WFO classification is managed through Rhakhis, a standalone, web-based data management tool allowing curation of the data. Curator authentication is handled via a link to ORCiD. Authorisation for curators is delegated hierarchically down the taxonomic tree. This allows TENs, and the TEN Manager, to oversee and manage the live data directly and delegate curatorial authority to colleagues. The TEN Manager has additional tools to add newly published, historic names and edits from the International Plant Names Index (IPNI); incorporate structured classification files from sources like World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP), BryoNames, and datasets provided by TENs stored in institutional taxonomic databases or in Catalogue of Life’s ChecklistBank. The WFO classification is published 6-monthly as the WFO Plant List, and is provided in multiple formats with a CC-0 licence, including data archives on Zenodo and ChecklistBank with DOIs. Two R packages are available to match and resolve names to a WFO ID. Name matching is also available through an interactive online matching tool that accepts text lists and csv files. Machine to machine interfaces allow for integration with curatorial and other systems.