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Corallosphere.org is a web application developed with the aim of exploring new approaches to compiling taxonomic information on extant and extinct scleractinian corals. The main areas covered in Corallosphere include text descriptions for diagnoses of valid genera, as well as tools for managing taxonomic synonymies, image databases, a bibliography, and an illustrated atlas of morphological terms. All this information has now been added to WoRMS and is now in the process of being further integrated by the taxonomic editors of World List of Scleractinia.

At the start of this integration exercise, a number of genera from Corallosphere were already present in WoRMS. The missing genera have been added, and the existing ones were updated. A valuable addition to WoRMS is all the available type information (species, specimen, locality), as well as the many notes on the genus description, diagnosis and comparison. On top of that, Corallosphere was also a rich source of distribution information, resulting in the addition of 2.432 distributions with a fossil range. Last but not least, 3.055 images have been added, and 8.371 new references.

This integration work is supported by LifeWatch Belgium, part of the E-Science European LifeWatch Infrastructure for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research. LifeWatch is a distributed virtual laboratory, which is used for different aspects of biodiversity research. The Species Information Backbone of LifeWatch aims at bringing together taxonomic and species-related data and at filling the gaps in our knowledge, to which WoRMS and its sub-registers are a valuable contribution. In addition, LifeWatch gives support to taxonomic experts by providing them logistic and financial support for the organization of meetings and workshops related to expanding the content and enhancing the quality of taxonomic databases. WoRMS is an endorsed project action under the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (UN Ocean Decade).