Stephen T. Garnett, Les Christidis, Stijn Conix, Mark J. Costello, Frank E. Zachos, Olaf S. Bánki, Yiming Bao, Saroj K. Barik, John S. Buckeridge, Donald Hobern, Aaron Lien, Narelle Montgomery, Svetlana Nikolaeva, Richard L. Pyle, Scott A. Thomson, Peter Paul van Dijk, Anthony Whalen, Zhi-Qiang Zhang, Kevin R. Thiele

“ However, list preparation and annotation require effort, which should also be recognised, so any global listing system will need a mechanism for citation and public recognition of the taxonomists and organisations whose skills have been drawn on most heavily to give the list legitimacy. The use of a formal citation of a list that includes editors' names, as conducted by the CoL [21] , enhances its authoritativeness and ensures that users immediately know who was responsible for its quality. It also gives formal permanent credit to the people who created it. ”

“ As improvements in information technology make it easier to communicate, access, and aggregate biodiversity information, there is a need for a framework that helps taxonomists and the users of taxonomy decide which taxa and names should be used by society whilst continuing to encourage taxonomic research that leads to new species discoveries, new knowledge of species relationships, and the refinement of existing species concepts. ”

“ In many areas of science beyond taxonomy, organisations have made decisions, even controversial ones, on issues that transcend national borders. To do so, they have invoked governance principles to adjudicate decisions even in the face of continued debate. ”

“ However, neither the CoL nor any of the other aggregative lists have been adopted universally by users of taxonomic research. There are likely to be many reasons for this. Some are practical. The work involved in changing a taxonomy at a local or national level may be greater than the resources available to do so, and the savings from adopting a global list may not be apparent at a local level. More significantly, no existing list mechanism has established clear buy-in from either the broad taxonomic community or the broad stakeholder community. ”

“ Whilst we envision the final product to consist of a single, global, unified list of species, we expect such a master list to emerge as an aggregate of multiple well-defined lists focused on specific taxonomic groups. ”

“ To ensure this, the needs of all interested parties should be considered when designing and implementing the governance system. A global authoritative list of species should support different derived products tailored for different users, such as the scientific community, nature management authorities, policymakers, and the broader public with an interest in nature. In addition, the governance processes should be validated by important international organisations. ”

“ Nevertheless, much can be learnt from the communities of practice that already exist and regularly make difficult taxonomic decisions to create aggregated lists at a regional level or for major taxonomic groups. To achieve global acceptance, a unified global list of species will only be adopted if the full range of stakeholders in lists find it advantageous to use. ”

“ First, it means that some of the world's named species are effectively invisible to those who lack the resources to access or navigate specialist taxonomic literature. Second, the lack of a unified list means that scientific contributions towards improving the quality of taxonomic and nomenclatural knowledge are scattered and can often be missed. ”

“ Third, it forces other users, who may lack relevant taxonomic expertise, to choose between competing lists and taxonomic treatments of groups even though they rarely understand the rationale why competing lists exist and are confused by the differences between alternate taxonomic concepts and classifications. ”

“ One useful model may be wiki technology and open source software communities, in which individuals earn greater influence by contributing in an appropriate and cooperative manner, as happens with Wikispecies and WoRMS [11] . ”

“ Traditionally, such decisions have been made by following the opinion of responsible experts. However, aggregators need agreed-upon guidance on how to choose when the views of equally responsible experts diverge. ”

“ New species in the Old World: Europe as a frontier in biodiversity exploration, a test bed for 21st century taxonomy. PLoS ONE. 2012; 7: e36881. https://doi.org/10.137/journal.pone.0036881 PMID: 22649502 ”

“ A Guide to the Scientific Evidence and Current Debate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2019. ↑ Allee T, Elsig M. Why do some international institutions contain strong dispute settlement provisions? New evidence from preferential trade agreements. ”