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IntroductIon
A species is a basic unit for classifying all living crea-
tures on Earth. Following the widespread adoption of
binomial nomenclature by Carl Linnaeus (Linnaeus,
1753), the hierarchical taxonomic structure was estab-
lished and has been continually improving (Stearn, 1959;
Griffiths, 1976; Ereshefsky, 1997). With the develop-
ment of information management technologies, a huge
amount of species names had been deposited into these
taxonomic databases. Several major species databases
are now available; first, the Catalogue of Life (http://
www.catalogueoife.org/), which provides all available
species names in the world with simple taxonomic in-
formation of genus, family, order, class, and kingdom
(Roskov et al., 2013). It also provides both a web-based
interface for searching species and an annual checklist.
There are 1,837,565 species archived in this database, as
well as 63,418 extinct species (As of June 2019). A sec-
ond example is the Encyclopedia of Life (EoL; https://
eol.org/; Wilson, 2003) which categorizes 1,999,030
species and higher taxa (NatureServe, 2008). Many re-
searchers have contributed to this database, including
high-quality taxonomic data of each species. A third
example is the Global Biodiversity Information Facility
(GBIF; https://www.gbif.org/), which provides species
distribution data (1,393,178,066 occurrences; updated
March 2020) and a comprehensive species list (3,499,326
accepted species and 2,148,205 synonyms; updated June
2019) (Secretariat, 2013). Yet another example is the
National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
taxonomy database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/tax-
Journal of Species Research 9(3):233-246, 2020
Database of National Species List of Korea: the taxonomical
systematics platform for managing scientic names of
Korean native species
Jongsun Park1,†, Jung-Hyun An2,3,†, Yongsung Kim1, Donghyun Kim1, Byeong-Gug Yang2 and Taeho Kim2,*
1InfoBoss Inc. and InfoBoss Research Center, 301 room, 670, Seolleung-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06088, Republic of Korea
2National Institute of Biological Resources, Incheon 22689, Republic of Korea
3Division of Life Sciences, College of Life Sciences, Incheon National University, Incheon 22012, Republic of Korea
*Correspondent: taehok76@korea.kr
†These authors contributed equally to this work.
A scientic name is one of changeable terms in biology whenever additional research results of specic
taxa is accumulated. The Database of the National Species List of Korea (DBNKo) was developed to
manage taxonomic information of Korean species, designed to describe the changeable and complex
taxonomical structure and information. A Korean Taxonomical Serial Number (KTSN) was assigned to each
taxon, different from the normally used systems that the scientic name was considered as primary key to
manage higher rank of taxa systematically. Common names were also treated with the KTSN, reecting
that common name is considered as one type of taxon. Additional taxonomic information (e.g., synonyms,
original names, and references) was also added to the database. A web interface with an intuitive dashboard
presenting taxonomic hierarchical structure is provided to experts and/or managers of the DBNKo.
Currently, several biological databases are available in the National Institute of Biological Resources
(NIBR) such as a specimen database, a digital library, a genetic information system, and the shared species
data based on the DBNKo. The DBNKo started sharing species information with other institutions such as
the Nakdonggang National Institute of Biological Resources. It is an ideal centralized species database to
manage standardized information of Korean species.
Keywords: centralized species database, Database of National Species List of Korea, DBNKo, Korean
Taxonomical Serial Number, KTSN, web interface
Ⓒ 2020 National Institute of Biological Resources
DOI:10.12651/JSR.2020.9.3.233
234 JOURNAL OF SPECIES RESEARCH Vol. 9, No. 3
onomy), which has been utilized as a standard database
of species for many biological databases, such as the
nucleotide database and genome database, managed by
the US National Institute of Health (Federhen, 2011).
The NCBI database frequently updates scientic names
and higher taxa based on an internal review process with
experts and mostly relies on molecular phylogeny data
(Federhen, 2011). However, as its higher taxa classifi-
cation has been subject to controversy, researchers usu-
ally used this taxonomy not as a main reference for their
research. For instance, in plant species, many taxa have
no assigned rank, e.g., higher taxa of Dysphania pum-
ilio in NCBI is classed as Eukaryota (Superkingdom);
Viridiplantae (Kingdom); Streptophyta (Phylum); Strep-
tophytina (Subphylum); Embryophyta (no rank); Tra-
cheophyta (no rank); Euphyllophyta (no rank); Sperma-
tophyta (no rank); Magnoliopsida (no rank); Mesangio-
spermae (no rank); eudicotyledons (no rank); Gunner-
idae (no rank); Pentapetalae (no rank); Caryophyllales
(Order); Chenopodiaceae (Family); Chenopodioideae
(Subfamily); Dysphanieae (Tribe); Dysphania (Genus).
On the other hand, the taxonomic information in the
EoL (https://eol.org/; Wilson, 2003) includes more rank-
ing for this species: Eukaryota (no rank); Archaeplastida
(no rank); Chloroplastida (no rank); Streptophyta (no
rank); Embryophytes (no rank); Tracheophyta (no rank);
Spermatophytes (no rank); Angiosperms (no rank); Eud-
icots (no rank); Superasterids (no rank); Caryophyllales
(Order); Amaranthaceae (Family); Dysphania (Genus).
Furthermore, the two sources assign D. pumilio to dif-
ferent families: Chenopodiaceae was merged into Ama-
ranthaceae based on molecular phylogenic result by An-
giosperm Phylogeny Group (APG) (Chase et al., 2016),
while another recent molecular phylogenic study (Her-
nández-Ledesma et al., 2015) and phylogenetic trees
based on complete chloroplast genomes (Chen and Yang,
2018; Kim et al., 2019b; Kim et al., 2019a; Park and
Kim, 2019; Kim et al., 2020), classed Chenopodiace-
ae as a separate family from Amaranthaceae. All of the
aforementioned databases provide a web-based interface
to access species information; however, most of these
databases consist of a single search box for inputting the
scientific name, limiting the results data with specific
conditions for searching scientic names; for examples,
nding synonyms under the specic genera or species.
Other species databases focus on specific taxonomic
groups (e.g., plants, algaes, and fishes). The Plant List
(http://www.theplantlist.org/) provides plant species
names with valid name and synonyms (Kalwij, 2012).
Synonyms are important information as they were used
in the past and reect taxonomic classication history.
The International Plant Names Index (IPNI; http://www.
ipni.org/) is another database for plant species (Ipni,
2015). The FishBase (http://www.shbase.org/) database
contains 34,300 sh species (As of March 2020), provid-
ing a web interface to search for scientic names (Froese
and Pauly, 2009); and Algaebase (http://www.algaebase.
org/) is a specialized database for algal species, covering
157,769 species (As of March 2020). All of these data-
bases deal contain large species lists, which causes one
critical limitation: some scientic names in these data-
bases are neither recent or correct: for example, Humu-
lus japonicus, a Korean plant species, is a valid name in
the National Species List of Korea; however, The Plant
List presents it as a synonym of Humulus scandens. This
inconsistency among databases can signicantly hinder
species database construction. In essence, a species da-
tabase equipped with a simple structure will categorize
H. japonicus and H. scandens as different species, as
the scientific name is used as a unique identifier. This
leads to an increase in the number of species, although
all these synonyms describe the same species. Because
of this problem, localized species databases are required
to validate scientific names by eliminating redundan-
cies as much as possible. Furthermore, the complexities
surrounding scientific names (e.g., synonyms) and us-
er-friendly web-based interfaces should be considered to
construct species database.
The Database of National Species List of Korea
(DBNKo) of the National Institute of Biological Re-
searches (NIBR; https://www.nibr.go.kr/) was built to
manage scientic names of all Korean species, attempting
to address the limitations of the previous databases. High-
er taxonomical information, synonyms, and references of
past taxonomic history were all included in the database
design and the web-based interface. The DBNKo releases
an updated species list annually, a high quality of species
names was achieved by overcoming the limitations of
previous databases. Moreover, the DBNKo is a central-
ized species database inside the NIBR system, providing
standardized species data with higher taxonomical infor-
mation to other systems managing biological information
in the NIBR, acting as a model for other species systems.
MaterIals and Methods
Database structure of the DBNKo was designed to man-
age scientific names that can be more changeable than
what computer engineers expected. The primary key for
scientic name was dened to each taxon, termed as Ko-
rean Taxonomical Serial Number (KTSN), and then their
hierarchical structure was implemented as parent-child
relation in a table. In addition, we created several cache
tables to retrieve species information efficiently and to
synchronize species information with the other systems.
The DBNKo system was constructed based on an
e-government framework (Sun et al., 2015) to achieve
August 2020 Park et al. Database of national species list of Korea 235
high level of online security. The web interfaces for the
DBNKo were developed using JSP and JAVA code with
the Oracle database. JQuery was used to implement dy-
namic functions in the web interface to efciently man-
age taxonomical information. An integrated authorization
system was adopted from the mainframe of integrated
authentication systems in NIBR to control permissions to
access taxonomical data.
The tree interface of the DBNKo system was developed
using the ztree plug-ins (http://www.treejs.cn/v3/main.
php#_zTreeInfo), providing useful functions to manage
the taxa stored in the database. A reporting tool was de-
veloped with native JAVA code generated the list of sci-
entific names in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and
Hangul Word Processor format les.
results and dIscussIon
Korean Taxonomical Serial Number
The Korean Taxonomical Serial Number (KTSN) was
dened as a unique, persistent, and non-intelligent num-
ber for taxa originating from Korean species names. Hav-
ing unique KTSN values for individual species indicates
a unique scientic name in the system. This is useful to
track names of old taxa and their past synonyms, as our
database will retain the relationships between the old and
current species names. The non-intelligence aspect means
that there is no specic meaning in the KTSN value ex-
cept some rules: i) The rst three digits indicate the clas-
sication of taxon names (120) or common names (121),
and ii) taxa originating from different hierarchy, such as
Category of Life (CoL) (Roskov et al., 2013) or Angio-
sperm Phylogeny Group IV (APG IV) (Chase et al., 2016)
systems starts from 120000500001. The National List of
Korean species was published in the last six years (Table
1), based on the DBNKo, indicating that this database has
stabilized for Korean species by maintaining KTSNs.
Our database was also designed to manage Korean spe-
cies considering higher taxonomic levels, such as family
and order. These are very important as a summary of
Korean species and understand their taxonomical distri-
bution. Because of this, scientific names (genus +spe-
cies) should have at least two KTSNs: one for the genus
and another for the species. For example, Platanthera
mandarinorum subsp. ophrydioides (KTSN: 1200000
65610), called Gu-reum-je-bi-ran in Korean (KTSN: 1210
00017509), consists of three KTSNs: i) that of Plan-
tanthera (120000065603) called Je-bi-nan-cho-sok in
Korean (KTSN: 121000035386); ii) that of mandarino-
rum (120000065607) called San-je-bi-ran in Korean
(KTSN: 121000002449); and iii) that of ophrydioides
(120000065610), called Gu-reum-je-bi-ran in Korean
(KTSN: 121000017509). This would be tricky to orga-
nize and store in a standard data structure, such as an ex-
cel le; however, each taxon should be considered as an
independent database record to manage hierarchical tax-
onomical structure. To avoid confusion from one species
having several KTSNs, the representative KTSN for each
species was dened as that of the lowest taxonomic rank
of that species. Accordingly, the representative KTSNs
for Platanthera mandarinorum and Platanthera man-
darinorum subsp. Ophrydioides are 120000065607 and
120000065610, respectively. This prevents the system
from assigning duplicated KTSNs to individual species.
Sometimes, genus and higher-ranking taxa change as
new evidence emerges. For example, Chenopodium was
separated into several genera: one of them is Dysphania
genus that consists of 7 to 10 species (Aellen, 1930; Wil-
son et al., 1983) and some species including Dysphania
pumilio were introduced in Korea (Chung et al., 2001).
If Chenopodium pumilio (KTSN: 120000060667) used
in the National Species List of Korea was to be changed
to D. pumilio, two new KTSNs for Dysphania genus and
pumilio species under Dysphania genus will be issued,
and the resulting KTSN for D. pumilio would be different
from that of C. pumilio. Consequently, C. pumilio will be
treated as a synonym of D. pumilio in the DBNKo. All
processes were recorded as historical alterations of tax-
onomic data, such as assigning new KTSNs and treating
synonyms. These historical records track changing scien-
tic names and the reasons for these changes. Moreover,
scientic publications relating to such name changes are
also registered in the database.
Common names, written in Korean and English, also
Table 1. Summary of Korean National Species Lists which have been published ofcially till now
Year published # of taxa Methods
2015 42,756 Excel les from each management taxonomical group.
2016 45,295 List was constructed based on Database of Korean National Species List
2017 47,003 List was constructed based on Database of Korean National Species List
2018 49,027 List was constructed based on Database of Korean National Species List
2019 50,827 List was constructed based on Database of Korean National Species List
2020 52,628 List was constructed based on Database of Korean National Species List
236 JOURNAL OF SPECIES RESEARCH Vol. 9, No. 3
have a unique KTSN (those start with 121). It also con-
tains local names and typos collected from diverse refer-
ences such as books, reports, and records for traditional
species information. Common names of species were in-
cluded in the DNSL given how widely they are used to
distinguish between individual species. However, there
are instances where one common name refers to multiple
taxonomic species or vice versa. To treat these cases, the
relationship between the KTSN of scientic names and
that of common names was maintained as many-to-ma-
ny relationship. We are also planning to expand to local
names and common names in other languages, making
the database more useful to nd diverse common names
of taxa.
The KTSN for taxa start with 120000000001; while
those for common names start with 121000000001, en-
abling users to easily distinguish them from one another.
Based on the current status of species stored in the da-
tabase, additional taxa from the other government insti-
tutes, such as the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future
Planning, will be integrated into the database.
Taxonomic data structure in the DBNKo
The DBNKo was designed to cover complex layers of
taxonomic information including the taxon itself, the rela-
tionships between valid names and synonym, hierarchical
structure (the parental relationship between KTSNs) with
taxonomical systems, and related references (Fig. 1A).
It covers multiple hierarchical systems, such as the CoL
(Roskov et al., 2013) and APG IV (Chase et al., 2016),
which is plant-specic. Some taxa can be identical in both
hierarchical taxonomic systems: for example, the Mag-
noliaceae family (KTSN: 120000060031) exists both in
the National Species List of Korea and in the APG IV;
it has therefore been assigned a shared parental KTSN
(Order Magnoliales, KTSN: 120000060030) and two
different next parental KTSNs: one for Class Magnoliop-
sida (KTSN: 120000060028) in the National Species List
of Korea and the other one is Kingdom Plantae (KTSN:
120000098391; Fig. 1B). This way to store multiple hier-
archical taxonomic information will be efciently used to
compare the hierarchical structure for different taxonom-
ical systems to improve the National Species List of Ko-
rea.
To maintain the database containing these complex
taxonomical data with keeping taxonomical content up-
to-date for researchers, generally, databases for dealing
with species information provide web interfaces for man-
aging species name, taxonomical structure (Fig. 2A),
and common names together with synonyms (Fig. 2B).
Additionally, different properties of categorized species
Fig. 1. Database structure of Database of Korean National Species List. (A) Presents relationship of major entities of the Database of Ko-
rean National Species List. Black thick lines are n:m relationship and blue arrows show detailed content types of each entity. (B) displays
example of hierarchical relations of higher taxa originated from two different systems, KNSL and APG IV.
(A)
(B)
August 2020 Park et al. Database of national species list of Korea 237
(i.e., naturalized species, candidate new species, foreign
species, and candidate new foreign species) are also man-
aged in the database (Fig. 2B). Moreover, synonyms and
original names of the species, important information for
taxonomists, is also stored in the DBNKo (Fig. 2B). De-
tailed taxonomic information is displayed in the middle
section (Fig. 2C). Furthermore, hierarchical structures of
the taxon originated from multiple hierarchical systems
are displayed, if available (Fig. 2D), which is the same as
Fig. 1B. With synonyms and original names, identiers,
identier year (Fig. 2E), and references are also included
in the database (Fig. 2F). Common names in the database
are classified as representative names, majorly used by
people and the remaining common names including local
names (Fig. 2G).
To determine the sources of species names stored in the
database, which are major systems managed in the NIBR,
they were also included as the origin of species in our da-
tabase. In addition, the National Species List of Korea has
been updated annually, this origin covers species list of
each year to show which species names were included in
each year (Fig. 2C).
Since the current National Species List of Korea cov-
ers known species ranging from bacteria to mammals, a
strategy for classifying species names as group is strong-
ly required in the aspect of management species name
Fig. 2. Web interface of taxon in Database of Korean National Species List. (A) Provides hierarchical structure of taxon with the tree in-
terface. (B) shows basic information of taxon including KTSN, species properties, representative common names, and status of KTSN. (C)
displays ranks, names, common names, identiers, origins and etc. (D) displays information higher taxa based on hierarchical systems. (E)
shows the list of synonyms. (F) is the list of references related to this taxon. (G) is the list of all common names except representative name.
(A) (B)
(C)
(D)
(E)
(F)
(G)
238 JOURNAL OF SPECIES RESEARCH Vol. 9, No. 3
by experts whose major are different. Currently, there
are 27 defined management groups considering taxo-
nomical classication (Fig. 2C), with 26 of those includ-
ing species (Table 3) One group which is recently de-
ned, Cephalochordate, does not have Korean species at
this moment. Administrators for each group as taxonom-
ical experts were assigned to efciently manage species
data. Their roles are i) collecting newly identied spe-
cies in Korea in each group, ii) approving species names
registered by researchers with proper references, and iii)
managing previously constructed taxonomical hierarchy.
Legal species lists managed in the DBNKo
The DBNKo includes several species lists dened un-
der a legal framework, such as species that are almost
extinct in Korea and species lists for international trade
(Table 2). These lists were composed from various legal
documents; they sometimes contain different scientific
names than the current valid names due to errors made
either in the drafting of these documents or because of
time differences and changing denominations since their
publication. These problems can be solved by register-
ing them into the DBNKo once and linking them to the
currently valid name in the most recent National Species
List of Korea (Table 1). To overcome the problem that
changing species list updated annually requires updating
species name based on recent National Species List of
Korea, the DBNKo provides the pipeline to map these
lists against the most recent announced annual species
list of Korean species. The first step of this mapping
process is nding a valid species name in the DBNKo.
For some species of insects and invertebrates (e.g., Cam-
ponotus (Colobopsis) nipponicus and Cumella (Cumella)
alveata) of insects and invertebrates) it is more difcult
to find the correct species name because of discrepan-
cies in subgenera names. As the subgenus rank is usu-
ally used to classify species under a specific genus in
more detail, it tends to be more exible than at the genus
level (e.g. molecular phylogeny study can change the
previous classication of subgenera level (Hong et al.,
2017)). In this step, the subgenus is considered an addi-
tional taxon, resulting in a signicantly higher mapping
rate without considering subgenus than that with subge-
nus name. The second step is to include Korean names
when the scientic name could not be mapped to those
in the National Species List of Korea because of limited
coverage of the National Species List of Korea. Once
species name of which Korean name is the same as the
National Species List of Korea is found, the pipeline
will suggest this result to the expert for verication. The
third step and most important step is to update these lists
with every annual publication of the National Species
List of Korea announced by NIBR, including synonyms
and additional relations (e.g., typographic errors) to the
valid name. The above process enables the species lists
managed in DBNKo to be systematically up to date.
Web interfaces to manage hierarchical data
structures
The DBNKo contains data on each taxon, presented in
a tree structure (Fig. 3). To provide a user-friendly data
visualization output on the web interface, a tree-based
interface was designed and implemented. Each node in
the tree indicates a taxon with a unique KTSN (Fig. 3).
If the rank of the taxon is species or lower these nodes
are aggregated with those of species levels, according
to the National Species List of Korea. Once users want
to move to neighbor species or genus, they can click on
specic nodes to see the detailed information (Fig. 3B,
blue arrow) or click the plus icon to open the list of taxa
under it to access the raw data (Fig. 3B, orange arrow).
The search function above the tree interface was im-
Table 2. List of species lists dened by laws managed in Database of Korean National Species List
Name (Korean) Code Last updated date # of taxa
멸종위기 야생생물 EXT 2017-12-29 267
먹는 것이 금지되는 야생동물 DNE 2012-07-27 31
포획·채취 등의 금지 야생생물 DNC 2015-03-25 464
수출·수입등 허가대상 야생생물 EIA 2015-03-25 418
인공증식 또는 재배를 위한 포획·채취 등의 허가대상 야생생물 PRO 2015-03-25 12
국외반출 승인대상 생물자원 EA 3,751
생태계교란 생물 ED 19
위해우려종 HC 4
한국의고유생물 ES 2,302
국가기후변화지표생물 CI 100
획득 신고대상 생물자원 ACQUIRE 3,751
August 2020 Park et al. Database of national species list of Korea 239
plemented to directly nd specic taxa (Fig. 3A). In the
search results, the name of taxa and two icons (Fig. 3A,
yellow and grey arrows) were displayed. The folder icon
(Fig. 3A, yellow arrow) provides a function to open
higher nodes of the taxon up, while the check icon (Fig.
3A, grey arrow) provides detailed information of the
taxon in the right section of the screen (Fig. 2B-G).
The DBNKo also provides a search interface with
various options to manage taxa efficiently (Fig. 4A),
reflecting the complexity of the taxonomic data in the
database. After inputting the search terms on the inter-
face, a list of taxa can be obtained, displaying the sta-
tus, management group, KTSN number, rank, name,
identiers, identied year, common name, and origin of
the searched taxon (Fig. 4B). By clicking on the KTSN
number of each taxon, the user can see a brief informa-
tion in the extended layer under it (Fig. 4C) describing
its hierarchical structure. There are more interfaces
to show higher taxon and to print report forms for the
search terms. Additionally, there is a download function
of the species list to export data.
The species list with additional information, including
higher taxonomy, common names, and the date of their
introduction into the National Species List of Korea (Fig.
5), are provided in the website of the platform for bio-
diversity in Korea (http://www.kbr.go.kr/; Fig. 6). Users
can access the list by clicking the button located in the
upper right corner (i.e., the dotted box in Fig. 5) prompt-
ing the download of an excel spreadsheet. The ofcial
Fig. 3. Tree interface of taxon. (A) Shows interface to search by
management groups, rank, and name. Yellow arrow indicates fold-
er icon which open all higher nodes of the taxon up and grey ar-
row shows check icon which provides detailed information of the
taxon. (B) displays tree interface for hierarchical structure of taxa.
Plus icon indicated by blue arrow means open the lower taxa in
the specic taxon, and each node (orange arrow) represents each
taxon.
(A)
(B)
Table 3. Twenty-six management groups of the Database of Kore-
an National Species List
English name Korean name Code # of taxa
Mammalian 포유류 MM 125
Avian 조류 AV 527
Reptile 파충류 RP 32
Amphibian 양서류 AM 21
Fish 어류 -P 1,294
Urochordata 미삭동물류 UC 128
Invertebrate 무척추동물류
(곤충류제외)IV 9,900
Insect 곤충류 IN 18,638
Vascular Plants 관속식물류 VP 4,576
Bryophytes 선태류 MS 941
Charophyta 윤조류 CR 956
Chlorophyta 녹조류 CL 812
Rhodophyta 홍조류 RD 641
Diatoms 돌말류 DI 2,174
Cryptophyta 은편모조류 CT 15
Haptophyta 착편모조류 HT 7
Dinophyta 와편모조류 DN 442
Pyrrhophyta 황적조류 PY 2
Ochrophyta 대롱편모조류 OR 378
Fungi 균류 FG 4,288
Lichen 지의류 LC 1,133
Protozoa 원생동물류 PR 2,018
Euglenophyta 유글레나조류 EG 354
Cyanobacteria 남조류 CY 377
Bacteria 세균류 BA 2,821
Archaea 고세균류 AR 18
Total 52,628
240 JOURNAL OF SPECIES RESEARCH Vol. 9, No. 3
species lists is updated annually.
Web interfaces to manage additional information of
the National Species List of Korea
The current DBNKo includes additional information,
such as special lists of species dened by law, common
names, and references. Web interfaces to manage lists
of species dened by law provide two main functions: i)
management of types of special species list dened by
law (Fig. 7) and ii) management of species list in each
type of special list defined by law. As we expect new
species to be added to these special lists in the future, the
administrator can add new types of special species list
via the rst function, management of special species list
types. Currently, 15 lists are managed under the DBNKo
(Fig. 7). In each list, an administrator can search species
by KTSN, scientific name, and taxon name (Fig. 8A)
then register the Korean names and any other additional
information (e.g., Red List status) dened in the law (Fig.
8B).
Korean names are defined as common names in the
DBNKo; they can thus be managed through the func-
tion that normally manages common names (Fig. 9). The
DBNKo maintains independent KTSNs for common
names so administrators can add new common names
through this menu. However, this concept is relatively
complex to taxonomists because it is not a one-to-one
relationship, which is easy to understand, so that most of
the management functions of common names are in the
taxon management menu, where an administrator can
register or update common names (Fig. 2G).
References can be altered under the reference man-
agement menu, including registering new references and
assigning references to specic taxa (Figs. 10A and 9B).
New references can be registered or existing ones can be
modified (Fig. 10A). Additionally, the assignment link
(the dotted box in Fig. 10A) provides a web interface to
assign specific references to multiple taxa at one time
(Fig. 10B).
To make the species lists for reports or publications,
the DBNKo also provides a function to generate reports
based on selected taxa (Fig. 11). Users can select and
place taxa into a basket and select options to generate spe-
cies lists (Fig. 11A). As the generation of species lists can
take a relatively long time, the task will be registered and
users can check its status periodically (Fig. 11B). After
nishing this task, three les will be ready for download:
Fig. 4. Web interface of list of taxa with search options. (A) Displays complex interface for searching taxon. (B) is the list view of taxa
searched. (C) shows the example of brief information of taxon which will be appeared by clicking KTSN number in the list view.
(A)
(B)
(C)
August 2020 Park et al. Database of national species list of Korea 241
Fig. 5. Introduction page of Korean National Species List. Introduction page of National Species List of Korea in the platform for biodiver-
sity in Korea (http://www.kbr.go.kr/content/view.do?menuKey =446&contentKey =14).
242 JOURNAL OF SPECIES RESEARCH Vol. 9, No. 3
a Hangul le, as well as Microsoft Word and Excel les
(Fig. 11C).
The DBNKo as a centralized species database in
NIBR
Species information is fundamental information for
biological resources, such as specimens, dry samples,
and DNA samples. The NIBR manages several import-
ant biological databases, such as the specimen database
and Wildlife Integrated Genetic Information System
(WIGIS). These databases contain their own tables of
species names in the early phase; after the stabilization
of the DBNKo, they started referring to species infor-
mation stored in the DBNKo. This indicates that species
names in this database were enough to be considered as
Fig. 6. Download page of Korean National Species List. This web page provides the download link of National Species List of Korea in the
main page of the platform for biodiversity in Korea (http://www.kbr.go.kr/).
Fig. 7. Web page of list of special list of species dened by law. This web page provides management function of special list of species de-
ned by law.
August 2020 Park et al. Database of national species list of Korea 243
base to share KTSN data as a standardized species in-
formation. Once the technical process is established and
stabilized, the DBNKo will be a centralized species da-
tabase in Korea.
Future DIrectIons
In recent years, a centralized database (named as Da-
a standardized species list. Now, almost every system
managed by the NIBR uses the KTSN to extract stan-
dardized species information (Fig. 12). Moreover, other
databases managed by government institutes including
Nakdonggang National Institute of Biological Resourc-
es now obtains their species data from the DBNKo (Fig.
12). Other institutes such as the National Institute of
Ecology are in the process of joining our species data-
Fig. 8. Web pages of management function of special list of species dened by law. (A) Presents the web interface of searching taxon with
ve functions. (B) shows the list of registered species dened by law with Korean name.
(A)
(B)
Fig. 9. Web page of management of common names in Database of Korean National Species List. This web page displays the list of com-
mon names registered in the database.
244 JOURNAL OF SPECIES RESEARCH Vol. 9, No. 3
Fig. 11. Web interface of reporting tools in Database of Korean National Species List. (A) Presents the basket of report. Dotted box presents
option of generating reports. (B) shows the list of tasks registered for generating report. (C) displays three different formats of report gener-
ated by the Database of National Species List of Korea.
(A)
(B)
(C)
Fig. 10. Web pages of management of references in Database of Korean National Species List. (A) Shows the list of references with func-
tion to assign references to taxa. (B) Web interface of function assigning reference to taxa.
(A)
(B)
August 2020 Park et al. Database of national species list of Korea 245
structures of the taxa stored in the database, which will be
helpful to every user including researchers via providing
multiple hierarchical taxonomic structure.
acknowledgeMents
This work was supported by a grant from the National
Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR), funded by the
Ministry of Environment (MOE) of the Republic of Korea
(NIBR201805201). We also would like to thank the late
Dr. Won-young Choi to initialize this project and to pro-
vide the direction of the system and Juhyeon Kim to help
management of the National Species List of Korea.
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Submitted: May 20, 2020
Revised: July 14, 2020
Accepted: July 15, 2020
