Biodiversity checklisting system

[gunn at otago.ac.nz]

Recently the sci.bio.systematics newsgroup has debated 'Kingdoms'. 
There was an objection to having a kingdom for protista but no 
alternatives were given; the implied suggestion was (to wait) to know 
the relationsips of species so as to divide them into monophyletic 
groups.

And what of 'Protoctista' v 'Protista'?  I prefer the former because 
Lynn Margulis does and because to me her theories of eukaryote origins 
ring true.

Also: Soon there will be a notice coming this way about a taxonomic 
system that contains enough ORDER and Family names to cover all named 
species - algae and protozoa included. 

The prime purpose of this system, with a free and fully-functional 
checklisting program (and its slightly expensive high-level version 
suitable for project managers), is to aid biological conservation.  
SKIS (the SKI-System) does this by helping to make 'taxonomic problems'
a thing of the past when taxonomy is wanted just as a tool, eg for 
people working in conservation and education.

We're interested in how group specialists will take to SKIS. We know 
that your interest in Classification is usually in changing it.  Keep 
going, SKI-files are updatable!

Try it, and see what use you might have for 'user-defined standard 
taxonomies' (a flexible tool rather than a straight jacket). Your 
responses will be much appreciated.

Watch this space.

Stan Woods, Derek Gunn
SKS-Information