Andrew C. Jones1, Frank A. Bisby2, Richard J. White1, Ed Donovan1 and the Species 2000 Team
1 School of Computer Science, Cardiff University, 5 The Parade, Cardiff CF24 3AA, UK
2 Centre for Plant Diversity & Systematics, School of Plant Sciences, The University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6AS, UK
The Species 2000 Dynamic Checklist will shortly be launched using the SPICE software, and an array of contributing databases connected to the federated system across the Internet. In addition to the User Interface intended for individual enquiries by scientists and others, there is also a Web-service by which electronic systems can access the species checklist automatically, so that the service can be built into other systems. Indeed the User Interface itself uses this Web-service, as does the BiodiversityWorld GRID system in another project.
The present Web-service (http://spice.sp2000europa.org/SPICE/services/CASWebService) is an Apache AXIS and SOAP web-service that uses the six request types of the SPICE protocol. It can thus be used to search the Checklist for a name, to retrieve accepted species and their Standard Data including synonyms, and to move up and down the Catalogue of Life hierarchy.
A further development will follow shortly – to provide a cut down version that is simply a Synonymy Server. A name sent to this service will yield two responses, the currently accepted name of the relevant species in the Catalogue of Life, and the list of synonyms recorded for that species in the Catalogue of Life. In some other cases the response will be either that there is no species corresponding to the name submitted, or that the name submitted is ambiguous, and the response will be provided for two or more accepted species.