CAB Thesaurus

The CAB Thesaurus, the controlled vocabulary covering applied life sciences and related subject areas, has had its biggest update in 30 years. In just one year the thesaurus has grown by 40 per cent and now includes nearly 137,000 terms, says CABI.

The thesaurus containing the scientific names and synonyms for pest- and disease-causing organisms, birds, mammals, insects and other species and detailing the relationships between them. It plays a vital role in ensuring the quality and consistency of all content produced by the applied life sciences publisher, CABI. It is also licensed by CABI to a wide variety of other organisations to categorise and index their own content.

Additions to the new edition include: 10,000 nematode species mentioned in CABI online databases; world lists of birds, mammals, sucking lice (Anoplura) and trichodectid chewing lice (Mallophaga), with synonyms; complete revisions to the existing taxonomic hierarchies in the thesaurus of dinoflagellates and algae; and 7275 new insect species from the Medani database, which contains species of veterinary and medical importance.

The CAB Thesaurus is expected to double in size in the next five years. In addition, several innovations are planned to make the thesaurus more than just a controlled vocabulary. The most important of these will be to include semantic features into the thesaurus to make it fit for new CABI products and for wider use as part of the Semantic Web.

The CAB Thesaurus is available in English, Spanish and Portuguese, and is currently being translated in its entirety into Farsi.