Phenotypes in insect biodiversity research

Recent advances in Web technology and information sciences, especially the development of knowledge representation systems\---|ontology languages (Web Ontology Language) and syntaxes (Manchester syntax)\---|are now infiltrating the world of insect biodiversity research. Data generated from taxonomic revisions, comparative morphology studies, and other enterprises now have the potential to be shared broadly and to be computed across\---|i.e., they are rendered semantic\---|in order to address questions relevant to multiple domains in the life sciences. In this chapter we describe the philosophy behind these new tools, the mechanisms by which they operate, and the real and future benefits of the semantic representation of phenotype data (e.g., standardization of terminology). We provide examples using real data and describe some limitations of semantic phenotype annotations.