REVIEW The Need for Data Standards in Zoomorphology Lars Vogt, 1 * Michael Nickel, 2 Ronald A. Jenner 3 and Andrew R. Deans 4 1 Abteilung Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie, Institut fu ¨ r Evolutionsbiologie und O ¨ kologie, Fachgruppe Biologie, Universita ¨ t Bonn; An der Immenburg 1, Bonn D-53121, Germany 2 Institut fu ¨ r Spezielle Zoologie und Evolutionsbiologie, Friedrich-Schiller-Universita ¨ t Jena, Erbertstr. 1, Jena D-07743, Germany 3 Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK 4 Department of Entomology, Pennsylvania State University, 501 ASI Building, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802 ABSTRACT eScience is a new approach to research that focuses on data mining and exploration rather than data generation or simulation. This new approach is arguably a driving force for scientific progress and requires data to be openly available, easily accessible via the Internet, and compatible with each other. eScience relies on modern standards for the reporting and documentation of data and metadata. Here, we suggest necessary components (i.e., content, concept, nomenclature, format) of such standards in the context of zoomorphology. We document the need for using data repositories to prevent data loss and how publi- cation practice is currently changing, with the emergence of dynamic publications and the publication of digital data- sets. Subsequently, we demonstrate that in zoomorphology the scientific record is still limited to published literature and that zoomorphological data are usually not accessible through data repositories. The underlying problem is that zoomorphology lacks the standards for data and metadata. As a consequence, zoomorphology cannot participate in eScience. We argue that the standardization of morphologi- cal data requires i) a standardized framework for terminol- ogies for anatomy and ii) a formalized method of description that allows computer-parsable morphological data to be communicable, compatible, and comparable. The role of controlled vocabularies (e.g., ontologies) for developing re- spective terminologies and methods of description is dis- cussed, especially in the context of data annotation and semantic enhancement of publications. Finally, we intro- duce the International Consortium for Zoomorphology Standards, a working group that is open to everyone and whose aim is to stimulate and synthesize dialog about standards. It is the Consortium’s ultimate goal to assist the zoomorphology community in developing modern data and metadata standards, including anatomy ontologies, thereby facilitating the participation of zoomorphology in eScience. J. Morphol. 000:000–000, 2013. Ó 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. KEY WORDS: international consortium of zoomorphology standards; eScience; standardization; zoomorphology; ontology INTRODUCTION What can data and metadata standards do for research in zoomorphology? Consider this hypothetical, yet all too realistic, scenario. A gradu- ate student in your lab is interested in invertebrate morphology, and wants to do a research project on the frontal organs of entoprocts. The organ is found in entoproct larvae and is thought to play a crucial role in the settlement of larvae in some groups (Nielsen, 2011).The student starts by delving into the literature, and then feels ready to go into the lab and describe the frontal organ of the larvae of a newly described species of entoproct. He uses both light microscopy and transmission electron micros- copy to describe both the fine morphology and three dimensional structure of the frontal organ. He sub- sequently publishes the results, including illustra- tions, as well as a discussion of the possible evolu- tionary significance of the frontal organ, and con- cludes that the evolution of frontal organs in entoprocts may have been a key event that allowed adult entoprocts to become sessile organisms. Although the study was a positive contribution to invertebrate zoology, its impact is limited by several factors. Because the student does not con- tinue in research, he stores her specimen informa- tion, slides, and raw data and metadata on a zip disk that he leaves in a cupboard in her supervi- sor’s office. Being a busy academic, the supervisor does not find the time to make publicly available the many unpublished images stored on the zip Contract grant sponsor: U.S. National Science Foundation; Grant numbers: DEB-0842289 and DBI-0850223 (to ARD); Contract grant sponsor: Phenotype Research Coordination Network; Contract grant number: DEB-0956049 (to ARD). *Correspondence to: Lars Vogt, Institut fu ¨r Evolutionsbiologie und O ¨ kologie, Fachgruppe Biologie, Universita ¨t Bonn; An der Immenburg 1, Bonn D-53121, Germany. E-mail: lars.m.vogt@gmail.com Received 8 July 2012; Revised 10 December 2012; Accepted 18 January 2013 Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/jmor.20138 JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY 000:000–000 (2013) Ó 2013 WILEY PERIODICALS, INC.