Spreadsheets to expedite taxonomic publications by automatic generation of morphological descriptions and specimen lists

Abstract

It is now generally accepted that we are going through a major mass extinction event that is causing biodiversity lossat alarming rates (Barnosky et al. 2011). We also know that many species remain to be formally described (e.g. Huber2014), and concerns have been raised as to whether we will be able to document these before they go extinct (Costello etal. 2013). On one hand, the number of recognized species increases exponentially (e.g. Agnarsson et al. 2013; Sangster &Luksenburg 2015). On the other, taxonomic descriptions are becoming more complete and detailed, which is necessarilymore time-consuming, leading to an overall decline in the number of species described per taxonomist (Sangster & Luksenburg2015). In this scenario, any method or protocol that increases efficiency in taxonomic descriptions is welcome.