The European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT) is a five-year, EU-funded Network of Excellence, the purpose of which is to encourage better integration of effort in taxonomy across Europe. It has long been felt that support for taxonomy will be much improved if taxonomists can unify their effort and ‘work as one’. That is a demanding aim, but we can at least try to move towards it.
EDIT is formed of a consortium of many European institutions. The project is divided into a number of ‘Workpackages’, one of which (WP6) is dedicated to ‘Unifying Revisionary taxonomy’. The Diptera have been selected as demonstrator taxa for this Workpackage, especially Milichiidae and Sciaroidea for both of which websites have been established. The family Milichiidae serves also as a zoological testbed for the Diptera portal and taxonomic editor developed by WP5. The project provides an ideal opportunity to consider working together more effectively. We should like to build on the goodwill that exists between entomologists (professional and amateur) in the hope of furthering the aims of EDIT, of taxonomy, and, particularly, of dipterology.
For more information on the EDIT Insect Exemplar group visit www.edit-insects.info.