Taxonomy Identifiers (TaxId) for Biodiversity Genomics: a guide to getting TaxId for submission of data to public databases.

Abstract

Biodiversity genomics critically depends on correct taxonomic identification of the sample from which data are derived. Tracking of that taxonomic information through systems that archive data and report on genome sequencing efforts. For submission of data to the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (INSDC) databases (DNA DataBank of Japan [DDBJ], European Nucleotide Archive [ENA] and National Center for Biotechnology Information [NCBI]), samples and data derived from them must be assigned a species-level NCBI Taxonomy taxonomic identifier (TaxId, sometimes referred to as taxId or txid). We thus need to be able to identify the TaxId for a target species efficiently. Because the NCBI Taxonomy does not include all known species and cannot preemptively represent unknown taxa, we also need an efficient process for generating new TaxIds for species not yet listed. This document provides workflows for different kinds of TaxId acquisition scenarios and was created to guide users in these processes. Although developed for European projects such as Darwin Tree of Life and the European Reference Genome Atlas, the workflows are universally applicable and describe the use of ENA in resolving taxonomic issues. Too Long: Didn't Read (TL;DR): Use the ENA REST API programmatically to retrieve TaxIds for target species and confirm that sequence data can be submitted to those TaxIds.Use the NCBI Web interface to NCBI Taxonomy to identify potential homotypic synonyms.Request a new TaxId from ENA for a species not yet in NCBI Taxonomy, and for species-like entries for which the full Linnaean binomen is not determined (see https://ena-docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq/taxonomy_requests.html#creating-taxon-requests).Discuss directly with the NCBI Taxonomy curators or the curators at ENA and NCBI whenever you think there is an opportunity to improve their database.