PRESS RELEASE
Embargoed: 7:00 GMT Tuesday 4 September 2012
Born Digital, Born Free? Taxonomic publishing comes of the digital age
International body responsible for animal scientific names passes landmark amendment legitimising electronic publication for the first time
Following four years of highly charged debate, the rules for publication of scientific names of animals have been changed to allow electronic publications to meet the requirements of the stringent International Code of Zoological Nomenclature . In a landmark decision, the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) has passed an amendment to its rules that will accept an electronic-only publication as
‘legitimate’ if it meets criteria of archiving and the publication is registered on the ICZN’s official online registry, ZooBank.
“ For the past 250 years the simple, consistent system proposed by Linnaeus in his
Systema Naturae in 1758 has allowed worldwide communication about animals.
Keeping names sensible and stable is a key task for our ability to understand and communicate about the living world. The change in ICZN publication rules is intended to speed the process of publishing biodiversity information, to improve access to this information, and to help reduce the ‘taxonomic impediment’ that hinders our cataloguing of the living world. This really is an important development for the ICZN, and parallels a similar, though less far-reaching, decision in botany. The expectation is that this has modernised and further democratised taxonomy, though some scientists see the move as a risky experiment in unmooring a previously well-anchored system of linking publications, names and taxonomic concepts. Whether electronic archiving stands the test of time, as have paper-based libraries, remains a concern for some scientists.
” said
Dr Ellinor Michel, Executive Secretary of ICZN.
The decision has not been without controversy because the rules of the ICZN are considered, and intended, to be among the most rigorous for scientific publication. The task of keeping correct information on animal names is immense and critical, as almost all information on the living world is linked through names. Animals comprise the vast majority of the world’s recognised living species and currently stands at around 1.9 million, growing at a rate of about 20,000/year. For each of these groups there are as many as 2 –10 legitimately published names due to past debate and poor information exchange. Estimates of the total of living animal biodiversity are 4 –20 times this number
(8 –50 million species), with fossils adding many more. When the task of cataloguing biodiversity approaches completion, this vast amount of information will be linked through names.
The new decision means that the difficulty in naming some species such as the case of
Darwinius masillae can be avoided. In 2009 a fossil discovery was announced that was supposed to profoundly change our views on human evolution. The 47 million year old fossil nicknamed ‘Ida’, was published in the electronic journal PLoS One. The publishers had an 11 th hour realisation that this publication would not be legitimate under ICZN rules. The name could even have been scooped by an unscrupulous author. A ‘special paper copy’ of the journal had to be published, which would not be needed under the new rules.
“
ZooBank is a major step towards completing the Linnaean enterprise, which is essential for mapping Earth's still poorly known fauna. With the firm foundation of an authority on scientific names, the rest of biology will be immensely strengthened, and humanity

correspondingly benefited" commented Professor Edward O. Wilson, a leading authority on biodiversity.
Georgina Mace OBE and Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystems Univ. College
London said " This is a hugely significant step for animal conservation. With ZooBank in place we will all have access to a single reference list of animal names, and so discussions about priority species and habitats can proceed with greater clarity and speed ."
The ICZN ruling is explicit that while the publication can exist in an electronic-only format, it must still be published through a recognised scientific journal. Purely web options such as blog posts, forums, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Scratchpads and other potentially ephemeral, unarchived web-only sources still do not qualify as legitimate publications under the new ICZN rules.
“The new rules will open the door to electronic publication and facilitate a truly web- based taxonomy. The next few years will be interesting times for scientific publishing
as the debate resolves between expediency and durability.” said Dr Michel.
Notes to editors
The official amendment and brief discussion are available from:
Zootaxa : http://www.mapress.com/zootaxa/list/2012/3450.html
Zookeys: http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/3944/
Published input and the 2008 draft amendment: http://iczn.org/content/availabilityelectronic-publication
A copy of the amendment and can be requested from E. Michel, contact below.
 Most of the world’s described taxa are animals (1.8 million), this work of the
ICZN is of global importance for communicating about the living world.

The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) is an international body of experts on scientific nomenclature who act as the arbiter on scientific names of animals. The Commission’s job is to ensure names of animals are stable and universal by applying the rules of the International Code of
Zoological Nomenclature , or occasionally by overriding the rules of the Code to better serve stability. www.iczn.org

The Commission is a body of 28 international specialists (who give their service voluntarily), and a small secretariat, housed in the Natural History
Museum, London, who work towards a common, stable language of scientific names which can be used worldwide, and an open system of problem-resolution in cases of uncertainty or dispute. The ICZN publishes a code of rules so that most problems can be solved by taxonomists directly. In exceptional circumstances researchers can apply to the ICZN to override the rules, the equivalent of taking an issue to court. Cases of this sort go through a process similar to a legal trial, with a formal presentation of the case, a period of public input similar to open testimony, and judgment by the ICZN.

The Natural History Museum is an award-winning tourist attraction and also a world-leading science research centre. Through its collections and scientific expertise, the Museum works to help understand and maintain the richness and diversity of our planet, with ground-breaking partnerships in more than 70

countries and the largest collection of type specimens in the world. For more information go to www.nhm.ac.uk
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ZooBank is the official ICZN online registry for scientific names of animals , an authority for zoological nomenclature, and an information hub, or backbone, providing a dynamic web nomenclature for all other web-bioinformatics systems www.zoobank.org
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The decision has wide-reaching effect in scientific publishing . The number of scientific journals containing new nomenclatural acts on scientific names of animals numbers is currently estimated to be over 3000.
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Type specimens —the gold standard:
Biologists’ interpretation of how the diversity in the living world is structured into species is made solid through physical standards called type specimens, one or more for each species. A type specimen nails down the correct use of a name to a standard example of a species to make it indisputable. Taxonomy, in contrast to nomenclature, is the science that interprets biological data to test hypotheses of what makes up a taxon (such as a species or genus) and to determine its boundaries. Although fierce debate may surround the range of organisms correctly included within any single species, nomenclature governed by the ICZN ensures that a single correct name is available for the stable standard, the type specimen. Intentionally, nomenclature is as rigorously distinct from the fluid swirl of taxonomic interpretation as is possible.
Museums are the main repositories of type specimens, with a key role of providing the archives of types that keep biological information anchored to organisms. To do their work properly, taxonomists need to refer to the preexisting type specimens and to the oldest published literature when they revise the taxa in a group of organisms. This requires access to information on the types, as well as access to all the previous taxonomic publications on their animals. Good taxonomic work requires reference to museum collections and libraries.
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The rules of nomenclature are similar, but ruled by separate codes, for zoology, botany and bacteria . The botanical code (now renamed the
International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN)) changed its rules on publication earlier this year as well, allowing e-publication without any additional requirements for archiving or registration. Under the ICB, legitimate publication of new plant names requires only generation of a PDF document published in a journal with ISSN or a book with ISBN. The date allowing this transition was 1 January, 2012, which is now, with the current ruling, matched by the amendment to the zoological code. The scale of the nomenclatural challenge is considerably smaller for plants, however, as to date only about 260,000 plant and 100,000 fungi species have been described.
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The bacterial code ( International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB)) has very different requirements, as all new nomenclatural acts need to be published in one of two journals, tightly linked to their Code. Moreover, the bacteriologists decided to essentially amputate the historical legacy of research with most work before 1980 being deemed unrecoverable. Only about 9260 bacterial and archaebacterial names are regulated by the ICNB, as there is also a requirement that named taxa have a type culture. Much of bacterial diversity is not known to be culturable, thus can not have a type culture, thus is outside of the bacterial nomenclatural system.

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Work is now on-going to bring together the different nomenclatural codes, primarily through development of tools in common. The development of ZooBank and a registration system for fungi, which will become mandatory in January
2013, has happened in tandem, using the same web architecture, with tight collaboration of the prime authors. This, and other projects to unify the codes in practice, is being helped by an International Committee on Bionomenclature
(ICB).
For more information, images or interviews, please contact
Dr Ellinor Michel , Executive Secretary, ICZN
Tel: +44-207-942-5653 or mobile +44-750-607-1547
Email: iczn-em@nhm.ac.uk
Claire Gilby , Senior Press Officer, Natural History Museum
Tel: +44-207-942-5654 or mobile +44-779-969-0151
Email: press @nhm.ac.uk
.