The Spider Anatomy Ontology (SPD)—A Versatile Tool to Link Anatomy with Cross-Disciplinary Data
Open Access
- 22 October 2019
- Vol. 11 (10), 202
- https://doi.org/10.3390/d11100202
Abstract
Spiders are a diverse group with a high eco-morphological diversity, which complicates anatomical descriptions especially with regard to its terminology. New terms are constantly proposed, and definitions and limits of anatomical concepts are regularly updated. Therefore, it is often challenging to find the correct terms, even for trained scientists, especially when the terminology has obstacles such as synonyms, disputed definitions, ambiguities, or homonyms. Here, we present the Spider Anatomy Ontology (SPD), which we developed combining the functionality of a glossary (a controlled defined vocabulary) with a network of formalized relations between terms that can be used to compute inferences. The SPD follows the guidelines of the Open Biomedical Ontologies and is available through the NCBO BioPortal (ver. 1.1). It constitutes of 757 valid terms and definitions, is rooted with the Common Anatomy Reference Ontology (CARO), and has cross references to other ontologies, especially of arthropods. The SPD offers a wealth of anatomical knowledge that can be used as a resource for any scientific study as, for example, to link images to phylogenetic datasets, compute structural complexity over phylogenies, and produce ancestral ontologies. By using a common reference in a standardized way, the SPD will help bridge diverse disciplines, such as genomics, taxonomy, systematics, evolution, ecology, and behavior.Keywords
This publication has 33 references indexed in Scilit:
- Matching arthropod anatomy ontologies to the Hymenoptera Anatomy Ontology: results from a manual alignmentDatabase: The Journal of Biological Databases and Curation, 2013
- Ontologies as integrative tools for plant scienceAmerican Journal of Botany, 2012
- A Gross Anatomy Ontology for HymenopteraPLOS ONE, 2010
- The Teleost Anatomy Ontology: Anatomical Representation for the Genomics AgeSystematic Biology, 2010
- Invertebrate neurophylogeny: suggested terms and definitions for a neuroanatomical glossaryFrontiers in Zoology, 2010
- The OBO Foundry: coordinated evolution of ontologies to support biomedical data integrationNature Biotechnology, 2007
- Logical basis for morphological characters in phylogeneticsCladistics, 2007
- Phenotype ontologies: the bridge between genomics and evolutionTrends in Ecology & Evolution, 2007
- Evolutionary transformation from muscular to hydraulic movements in spider (Arachnida, Araneae) genitalia: A study based on histological serial sectionsJournal of Morphology, 2004
- A reference ontology for biomedical informatics: the Foundational Model of AnatomyJournal of Biomedical Informatics, 2003