Background: The digitization of biodiversity data is leading to the widespread application of taxon names that are\r\nsuperfluous, ambiguous or incorrect, resulting in mismatched records and inflated species numbers. The ultimate\r\nconsequences of misspelled names and bad taxonomy are erroneous scientific conclusions and faulty policy\r\ndecisions. The lack of tools for correcting this ââ?¬Ë?names problemââ?¬â?¢ has become a fundamental obstacle to integrating\r\ndisparate data sources and advancing the progress of biodiversity science.\r\nResults: The TNRS, or Taxonomic Name Resolution Service, is an online application for automated and\r\nuser-supervised standardization of plant scientific names. The TNRS builds upon and extends existing open-source\r\napplications for name parsing and fuzzy matching. Names are standardized against multiple reference taxonomies,\r\nincluding the Missouri Botanical Garden''s Tropicos database. Capable of processing thousands of names in a single\r\noperation, the TNRS parses and corrects misspelled names and authorities, standardizes variant spellings, and\r\nconverts nomenclatural synonyms to accepted names. Family names can be included to increase match accuracy\r\nand resolve many types of homonyms. Partial matching of higher taxa combined with extraction of annotations,\r\naccession numbers and morphospecies allows the TNRS to standardize taxonomy across a broad range of active\r\nand legacy datasets.\r\nConclusions: We show how the TNRS can resolve many forms of taxonomic semantic heterogeneity, correct\r\nspelling errors and eliminate spurious names. As a result, the TNRS can aid the integration of disparate biological\r\ndatasets. Although the TNRS was developed to aid in standardizing plant names, its underlying algorithms and\r\ndesign can be extended to all organisms and nomenclatural codes. The TNRS is accessible via a web interface at\r\nhttp://tnrs.iplantcollaborative.org/ and as a RESTful web service and application programming interface. Source\r\ncode is available at https://github.com/iPlantCollaborativeOpenSource/TNRS/.
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