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First, an important note for everyone to remember:
A few Wikipedians have gotten together to make some suggestions about how we might organize data in these articles. These are only suggestions, things to give you focus and to get you going, and you shouldn't feel obligated in the least to follow them. But if you don't know what to write or where to begin, following the below guidelines may be helpful. Mainly, we just want you to write articles!
Overview This WikiProject aims primarily to represent the taxonomy and relationships of living organisms, as well as their extinct relatives, in a tree structure. Since there are millions of species, not all will be included, but we aim to handle as many as information, time, and interest permit.
This WikiProject descends from WikiProject Science. Various other WikiProjects may be based on it to better treat specific groups. Currently there are:
Article titles and common names In cases where there is a formal common name (e.g. birds), or when common names are well-known and reasonably unique, they should be used for article titles. Scientific names should be used otherwise. Note the following guidelines in using scientific names: - Names of genera are always italicized and capitalized— Homo, Rosa, Saccharomyces.
- Species epithets are always italicized and preceded by the name of the genus or an abbreviation of it— Homo sapiens or H. sapiens, but never plain sapiens, since such identifiers need not be unique. They are never capitalized.
- Names of higher taxa are capitalized but not italicized— Hominidae, Mammalia, Animalia.
Standards for capitalization of common names have not been settled on, except for birds, (see the talk page), and should not currently be enforced.
In cases where a group only contains a single subgroup, the two need not be kept separate. If there is no common name, the article should go under the scientific name with the lowest rank, down to the level of genus. For instance, the division Ginkgophyta, class Ginkgoopsida, order Ginkgoales and family Ginkgoaceae only contain the single species Ginkgo biloba, so there is a single article for them at Ginkgo with the other pages redirecting to it. However, it may be noted that Ginkgophyta does have other extinct members, and so these groups may be separated out as pages on them are added.
Not all species need have separate articles. The simplest (and probably best) rule is to have no rule: if you have the time and energy to write up some particularly obscure subspecies that most people have never even heard of, go for it! As a general guideline, though, it's best to combine separate species into a single entry whenever it seems likely that there won't be enough text to make more than a short, unsatisfying stub otherwise. If the entry grows large enough to deserve splitting, that can always be done later.
A useful heuristic is to create articles in a "downwards" order, that is, family articles first, then genus, then species. If you find that information is getting thin, or the family/genus is really small, just leave the species info inline in the family or genus article, don't try to force it down any further. An exception to this is monotypic families or genera; create a species article then redirect family and genus names to it.
Taxoboxes
The full taxobox guide is located at Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox Usage.
Detailed taxonomic information, including notes on how taxa are defined and how they vary between different systems, belongs in the article proper. Where possible, however, a standard table will be provided to allow easier navigation between related groups and quick identification of what sort of organisms are being discussed. These are called taxoboxes. A typical taxobox is shown at right (it belongs on the top right of the page Cnidaria).
At the moment, there are three main sections to the taxobox:
- A header showing the name of the group, sometimes followed by a representative image.
- A table showing the placement of the group in a typical classification system.
- A footer, whose content varies, often showing the binomial name or a list of subgroups.
Possible expansions are still being discussed. Some items that are often included, but are not (necessarily) standardized, include: - Range map (Orca)
- References
- Breeding organizations' classifications (Dingo)
Position: The taxobox generally belongs at the top right corner of the article, unless it has been decided otherwise on the relevant talk page - for instance, if the article is not primarily about the biological group.
Categories Major groups should be given their own categories. When possible, these should use the common name in the plural. In general, only articles about major subgroups should be added, and more specific articles should be included in subcategories. However, when there are only a few articles about members of the group, they can all go directly into the main category. Use your judgement on when to split, aiming for an approximate category size of 10-50 articles.
Note that in addition to taxa, categories may also contain informal subgroups. For instance Category:Primates may include an article or subcategory for monkeys, although they are not treated as a formal group. They may also include some other articles that pertain specifically to members of the group, although they are not about them.
Taxonomic resources The taxonomy of many groups is in a state of flux, and it is not always possible to find a single satisfactory classification, and we would be doing a great disservice by pretending otherwise. The best would be to try and find out what the current consensus is, if there is one, and make notes on variant systems. In this, the following resources may be helpful:
General taxonomy - NCBI database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/)
- The Tree Of Life Web Project (http://tolweb.org/tree/phylogeny.html) - phylogeny, but without ranks - becoming out of date due to lack of updates
- Mikko's Phylogeny Archive (http://www.fmnh.helsinki.fi/users/haaramo/)
- Biosis Index to Organism Names (http://www.biosis.org.uk/triton/indexfm.htm)
- Systema naturae (http://sn2000.taxonomy.nl/) - usually gives multiple breakdowns for groups, which is sometims confusing but can be very useful
- Species 2000 (http://www.sp2000.org/members.html) a list of very specific taxonomic (current) databases, covering contemporary and fossil organisms.
Animals - Vertebrata (http://epp.eps.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~seicoro/bio/vertebrata.html) - Japanese language, but the structure's fine and the names are in Sciencese!)
- FishBase (http://www.fishbase.org/search.html?server=IFM-Kiel) - Huge database giving basic info on thousands of fish.
- Animal Diversity Web (http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/) from the University of Michigan - Very informative
- CephBase (http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/) - superb information about Cephalopod classification. Permission granted to use their images (see image:Orangeback_Squid.JPG for example
- Lepidoptera (http://www.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/intro.html) and other species (mostly related to Lepidoptera, such as popular butterfly plants, etc.). Info collected from other sources, not sure how accurate it all is. Interesting note: he has a (open source) perl script generating range maps automatically from distribution text.
Plants - Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (2003). An update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification for the orders and families of flowering plants: APG II. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 141, 399-436. available here : Wikipedia Tree of Life/Update of the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group or Available online (http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1046/j.1095-8339.2003.t01-1-00158.x/full/). Probably now THE authoritative source for flowering plants, and the family level and above.
- The TROPICOS database (http://mobot.mobot.org/W3T/search/most.html) is searchable by species giving you the APGII group classification. Also lists authors, synonyms and homonyms.
- Vascular Plant Families (http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/faculty/carr/pfamilies.htm) - a systematic and alphabetical index of the non-flowering and the flowering plant families with the Cronquist sytem and the phylogenetic system of Judd et al. (2002)
- www.itis.usda.gov - covers a lot of ground, but is often incomplete or idiosyncratic
- USDA/NRCS PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov/index.html) - Not complete, but nice. Resource for some PD images, although not all are PD. Use Template:PLANTSDB to label images. Common names used are usually only common in the USA and may not be used worldwide.
- biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/angio - flowering plants only, up-to-date scheme with comprehensive genus lists
- Gymnosperm Database (http://www.botanik.uni-bonn.de/conifers/taxa.htm) - very good coverage of gymnosperms
- HortiPlex Plant Database (http://hortiplex.gardenweb.com/) - Searchable by common or scientific name. Submitted by gardeners- may not be in line with current taxonomy.
- ILDIS (http://www.ildis.org/LegumeWeb/) A database of legume taxonomy, includes synonyms and accepted names, common names and detailed bibliographies for many species.
- Likewise, the following sites can help find taxonomic authors and abbreviations:
- IPNI, authors search (http://www.ipni.org/ipni/query_author.html) Note that IPNI explicitly says that it is a database of names, not organisms - it is not a good source for finding out where to place a plant, but it is the best place to look to find out how a name has been used and what else the same plant may have been called.
Protists and Prokaryotes - uBio classification (http://microscope.mbl.edu/reflections/scripts/protist.php) - classifications fairly deep and up to date, generally following standard form though not always among basal groups
- BIOS (http://www-sp2000ao.nies.go.jp/english/bios/index.html) database of bacteria, archea and cyanobacteria names, with bibliography.
Other resources Photos - Stock.xchng (http://sxc.hu/browse.phtml) - thousands of photos (e.g. over 9,000 in category 'animals', over 7,600 in category 'plants'), mostly free use ({{PD}}); many un-named, but a good source for those able to identify the pics
Similar WikiProjects
Participants - User:DanielCD My main interest in in fossils and extinct animals; adding taxoboxes where I find them missing.
- andy Mostly adding taxoboxes where I spot them missing, and occasionally adding articles on Amphibians
- anthony Mostly just lurking at this point.
- Belizian I just take nature pictures in the Jungles of Belize, request welcome.
- User:Chinasaur Going to try to add some images from the largely public domain NSF Image Library (http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:25690).
- Dan Koehl I am now trying to implement the templates on the swedish wikipedia.
- Dante Alighieri | Talk If I happen to be working on a plant/animal article with a missing taxobox, I usually try to put one in.
- Eclecticology
- Furius Just fleshing out Bovidae animals
- GerardM Mainly in using information for use in other wikipedia's and for promoting the universal taxobox in stead of an only en:taxobox.
- Hadal Currently focusing on fish but will write about anything with a heartbeat.
- Iorsh Wild flora of Israel. I'm an amateur - most my contributions are stubs with taxobox and a photo.
- Ingoolemo Currently mammals, will probably end up doing a lot of stuff on various organisms. I try to be as scientific as possible, but the problem is that taxonomy and biology aren't exactly the areas I specialise in.
- jaknouse Plants in general, especially ferns; have done some members of non-plant groups when noticeably missing
- Jim mainly birds
- JoJan : mostly Project:Gastropods; taxoboxes; common names
- Josh Grosse Mostly though not entirely protists.
- Jurriaan Mostly reptiles and amphibians
- --KQ (intermittently, when something has been dumbed down enough to be legible to the unwashed masses)
- Trevor Dykes (I'll try. My main interest is Mesozoic mammals and the like. I do wash, but I'm strictly an amateur.)
- LDan
- Magnus Manske
- Marshman Mostly angiosperms, but some invertebrates groups as well (Annelida, Arthropoda) from my previous life
- maveric149
- MPF Main interest in Pinophyta, also trees and other plants more generally
- [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (hopefully!)]] (endemic species)
- Nighthawk4211 I'm working mainly on the Orchidaceae.
- nixie I have been working on Aquatic plants, but I'm interested in most plant families- especially agricultural and model species
- OldakQuill General, alot of bacteria so far.
- Onco_p53 Mostly bacteria, some algae.
- Pierre Abbat
- Ram-Man
- User:seglea I have some specialist knowledge on birds, rodents and primates (which need a lot of work), but I have ready access to the technical literature and am willing to turn an amateur hand to most taxa.
- The Singing Badger No specialist knowledge but interested in improving stuff especially the prehistoric sections
- Stan Shebs fish, plants, insects, exotics - ideally material only in print previously, gives WP unique online content
- Stephen Gilbert (interested in working on dinosaurs; I'm also one of the unwashed masses.)
- Tannin Mostly birds and mammals, particularly Southern Hemisphere species.
- TeunSpaans Mostly plants, perhaps occasional insects. Creating interwiki links, adding a hand at expanding some stubs.
- UtherSRG General cleanup. Taxobox creation, formatting, maintenance. Projects Primates and Cephalopods.
- WormRunner (earthworms, some other invertebrates and some plants, especially herbs, medicinal plants and Oregon natives.)
- Gangleri I arrived here because I saw that some Tree of Life articles, categories (maybe also lists) (also from other languages) are not linked to la.Wikipedia. Having Icelandic Sheepdogs I search dog related articles in other Wikipedias and link them together for the dog breeds project.
- Tkinias I just realized I'd never added my name. I've started WikiProject Fishes.
Cleanup Please add {{ToLCleanup}} to the top of all ToL articles in need of cleanup. In addition to adding some text indicating the article needs some work, it will also add the article to Category:Wikipedia cleanup and Category:ToL cleanup. |
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