That is just one example, then, of a team of people from around the world deeply imbedded in the taxonomic profession making a Global Species Database for one group of plants. Going Beyond Legumes . Well, there is not a single route to that destination. In fact, there are various routes. For example, we are talking to the producers of a mollusk database in the U.S.A. and a mollusk database in Paris.
Some people start with the names from an index or from the zoological record.
So Marshal Crosby, making the mollusk list for the world, started from the names and, of course, some databases didn't inherit the taxonomy from specialists and then worked with them to create the database. In the Philippines, experts are working on a fish base, but the baseline taxonomy comes from experts in California. So these are different routes by which existing databases or data systems can approach this ideal of becoming part of a world species list. Now the ideals here are very demanding. Once we thought we would not find one database in the world that met all the demands.