International Committee for Bionomenclature (ICB) of IUBS

ICB: Infrastructures for unifying past and future naming of organisms (2016-2019)

Outline and Objective

Bionomenclature (ICB) was created in 1995 by joint decision of the International Union of Biological
Sciences (IUBS) and the International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS) – the Founding
Unions – to explore ways and means to harmonise the various sets of international rules governing the
creation and use of scientific names of organisms. The ICB has supported the Biocode Programme, whose work resulted in

1) the “BioCode Framework” for Principles and Rules Regulating the Naming of Organisms and

2) Biological nomenclature terms for facilitating communication in the naming of organisms.

The ICB continues to explore new programmes and works though its members to bring together the communities of scientists naming organisms across the Tree of Life. New life-wide challenges to cataloging, registering and managing knowledge of biodiversity have arisen from the very rapid application of molecular tools to the process of biodiversity discovery and their apparent incompatability with naming as mandated by the traditional codes of nomenclature. In its “Infrastructures for unifying past and future naming of organisms” programme, the ICB will promote the development of a forum that will lead to agreed protocols in the registration and management of information about all types of organisms discovered with new and emerging molecular tools, as well as streamlining digital access to the legacy knowledge base.

Leader

Ellinor Michel

Steering Committee

Ellinor Michel, Regine Jahn, Richard Pyle.

Additional SC members

MJ Adams, N Cellinese, JC David, D Fautin, GM Garrity, W Greuter, DL Hawksworth, PM Kirk, Sandra Knapp, J McNeill, D Remsen, G Rosenberg, B Tindall, J Todd, J van Tol, N Turland.

IUBS Scientific Members involved in the project

International Committee for Bionomenclature (ICB, the applicant organisation http://www.bionomenclature.net)

International Association for Plant Taxonomy (IAPT)

International Commission on the Taxonomy of Fungi (ICTF) 

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN)

Organisation for Phyto-Taxonomic Investigation of the Mediterranean Area (OPTIMA)

International Society for Phylogenetic Nomenclature (ISPN)

International Commission for the Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants (ICNCP)

Biodiversity Information Standards Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG)

Field of Research

Biodiversity science – nomenclature, taxonomy and biodiversity bioinformatics

Disciplines involved

Phylogeny, molecular biology, scientific publishing, zoology, botany, microbiology, virology

Questions addressed

Promote guidelines and an international agenda on nomenclatural activities in a world in which discovery of biodiversity is increasingly based on molecular tools and delivered digitally. Molecular discovery is currently diverging from type-based naming and information on biodiversity is becoming fractured without a coherent digital infrastructure. As with the Codes of nomenclature, we are in need of a unified infrastructure for registering new entities and integrating knowledge about them.

See also: Detailed Action Plan

Website of the Programme

http://www.bionomenclature.net