Approaches to the Automated Tracking of Taxonomic Research Activities

What this was about

David Fichtmueller introduced work package 1 of the newly started EU project TETTRIX, which will automatically gather ongoing taxonomic research activities from many sources into a central database (TaxoTrack), align them with taxonomic backbones and identifiers, and produce outputs such as maps, gap analyses, dashboards and policy briefs. He described how it builds on TETTRIs expertise assessments from publications (OpenAlex, Meise) and GBIF specimen data (Berlin), laid out the partner-led source streams, and asked the audience how their research could be detected. Feedback stressed ORCIDs on publications, registering nomenclatural acts, and institutional evaluation reports as sources.

Why it matters. A systematic, repeatable overview of taxonomic research activity could expose understudied taxa and regions and inform funders and policy makers, but it depends on the research being machine-detectable through identifiers such as ORCID.

In the room

• TETTRIX (successor of TETTRIs) started in September 2026; work package 1 will automatically gather ongoing taxonomic research activities, store them centrally and align them with taxonomic backbones.
• Earlier TETTRIs work assessed expertise from publications filtered in OpenAlex (Meise) and from GBIF specimen data (Berlin); the specimen approach was harder because person data in GBIF are ambiguous and rarely carry identifiers.
• Planned source streams: taxonomic publication databases incl. sub-article data (Pensoft: BLR, Biodiversity PMC, OpenBiodiv), funding records and project registries (UFZ Leipzig), taxonomic data networks and name registries (Berlin, Meise, Prague with a Central/Eastern European focus), 'dark' pre-naming activity via DNA barcodes, BINs and species hypotheses (NTNU), and expertise/service marketplaces.
• All sources feed a central database, TaxoTrack, aligned with identifiers such as Wikidata, ROR and ORCID, to generate maps, taxonomic coverage evaluations, policy briefs and dashboards.
• The team does not expect researchers to change workflows; it wants machine-accessible sources so the analysis can be re-run every few weeks or months.
• A survey was launched targeting funding agencies and project registries, with an open section for other source ideas.

Notable moments