Collaboration: The Key To Producing A Global Taxonomic Facility Of A Species Rich Group  <B>Collaboration: The Key To Producing A Global Taxonomic Facility Of A Species Rich Group </B><P> </B><EM><B></B></EM><B>Malcolm J. Scoble</B><EM><B></B></EM><BR> Department of Entomology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK<B></B><P> Since taxonomic institutions hold substantial collections of organisms and associated reference material, they have, potentially, a major social role to play in inventorying the biological diversity of the planet. However, much taxonomic data is stored uncollated, and thus is unavailable to the wider community of biologists, conservationists and planners. Europe is the cradle of taxonomy. With its wealth of biological research and reference collections and its extensive taxonomic library resources, the region has a special part to play in taxonomic documentation. The key to realising this role is a sense of purpose, clear goals and, above all, collaboration between institutions. Informal networks of taxonomists exist already in collections-rich institutions. But integration of effort in producing taxonomic data banks is likely to be encouraged by providing the means for developing large-scale projects involving carefully selected taxa.<BR> A project to database all the species names of moths of the family Geometridae, has been used not only to provide taxonomic information to the group in question, but also to test the practicality of compiling such information for a species-rich group. Data for 35,000 names have been collated, within about four years. The project has been a team effort involving researchers, curators, an IT systems and data manager, and a network of colleagues external to the lead institute. In recent years, systematists have received much encouragement, although limited financial support, to document biodiversity. A strong message to be derived from the project in question is that collaboration truly can expedite the inventorying of the living resources of the world.<P>