Global Names Architecture

Description

The Global Names Architecture (GNA) is a system of databases and services (a cyberinfrastructure) that discovers, indexes, organizes and cross-links electronic information about organisms through names that have been applied to them. The scope encompasses all life forms, and all text strings that have represented names of taxa (including both scientific and vernacular names). Historical and existing literature, museums, herbaria, and myriad databases and other electronic documents rely heavily on taxon names to provide context to biological data. A global infrastructure that manages taxon names (both as text-strings and as data objects) designed to interconnect electronic information empowers biologists to efficiently gain access to diverse sources of information on taxa, and enables data aggregators to organize large datasets in more meaningful ways. The Global Names Architecture was developed with support from the U.S. Geological Survey (NBII/PBIN), GBIF, and the US National Science Foundation.

Contacts

TECHNICAL_POINT_OF_CONTACT
Richard Pyle
Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice Street
Honolulu
96817
Hawaii
US
email: deepreef@bishopmuseum.org
homepage: http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/staff/pylerichard.html

Global Names Architecture
US
email: deepreef@bishopmuseum.org