SIKey: A tool to generate secondary identification keys for targeted diagnosis

摘要

Secondary identification key (SIK) is a new tool for species identification which enables users to identify possible specimens from a particular group of species (as rice insect pests). The SIK has proved more efficient and easier to be adapted than traditional keys for targeted diagnosis. Since it is hard and time-consuming for taxonomists to design SIK manually, a Web-based tool, SIKey, was developed for both experts and non-experts to acquire or revise SIK rapidly and conveniently. SIKey operates on secondary use of existing identification keys with logical reasoning and involves construction of computerized taxonomic knowledge base, tree-tracing for crossing nodes and generation of sub-keys. Currently a software called InsectID has been developed for the computerization of dichotomous keys while SIKey offers online, real-time auto-generation of SIKs for user-defined group of taxa. The principles, construction methods and testing of SIKey were described in this paper.