Coreoidea Species File Online: Learned in Creating a Comprehensive Taxonomic Inventory

Presentation given at the International Heteropterists' Meeting, July 2014 - Washington D.C.

Abstract: Coreoidea Species File Online (CSFO) is a comprehensive taxonomic database of the world's Coreoidea which has been available online since 2008. Prior to CSFO there was no recent catalogue for the group with the last comprehensive catalogue published in by Lethierry & Severin (1894) followed by a significant update by Bergroth (1913). As of May 2014 CSFO contains data for over 3,000 valid species with over 22,500 citations, 6,100 specimen records and 2,200 images. This data is freely available to all under a Creative Commons license and is harvested and used by major biodiversity aggregators such as Encyclopedia of Life and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. In the past year the site has had over 8,500 visits and has been used for over 890 hours (average visit 6+ minutes). We review the progress made so far, the decisions made during the project, the underlying Species File application, issues of database custodianship and sustainability, and the future role of taxonomic databases.