The €6 million Horizon Europe funded project TETTRIs addressed the taxonomic impediment by focusing on training, open data, public awareness and development of novel tools. In this article, we share the tools developed under the project.
TETTRIs tools are free and available now. The table below summarizes each one with a direct link to the tool and its user guide. Find a more detailed description of the tools below to the table.
| Tool | What it does | Access & user guide |
| Taxonomic Resolution Engine | Backbone linking species names across different datasets — ensures a name refers to the same thing everywhere. | |
| Check My Name | Check compliance with naming standards and find the right name-matching service for your dataset. | |
| Marketplace for experts and services | Making Europe’s taxonomic experts and services findable. Taxonomists are invited to complete a profile. | |
| SPART Explorer | A taxonomic web platform to explore (to infer, compare and visualise) species partitions. No login required. Analyses run in 1–3 minutes. | |
| AmpliPiper | A versatile amplicon-seq analysis tool for multilocus DNA barcoding | |
| Genomic workflow for taxonomy | GitHub repository designed to help taxonomists integrate genomic data into their research — specifically to identify and delineate species, assess intra- and interspecific genetic divergence, and reconstruct patterns of speciation. | |
| AI for biodiversity monitoring | TETTRIs advanced image recognition for the land snail genus Vertigo. Sound recognition for Orthoptera species, and footprint recognition of mammals in Norway |
Data used to update the software administered by Naturalis → User guide for footprints |
| Training courses | TETTRIs developed and tested a Train the Trainers methodology in which expert taxonomists train “Future Local Trainers,” who then run their own courses independently. |
→ Make your own course on Taxonomy Find courses at CETAF-DEST |
Taxonomic Resolution Engine and Check My Name
Species names exist on multiple databases. Sometimes the name of species “a” on one database does not correlate perfectly with species “a” on another. The Taxonomic Resolution Engine (TRE) is a proposal to link all names, ensuring when we refer to a name, we know we are talking about the same thing. Alongside the TRE, Check My Name supports consistent use of scientific names in data workflows. The satellite TNLS (led by the Flanders Marine Institute and Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh) built species identifiers that follow a species through revisions and alert researchers when name changes affect their datasets.
Finding the experts
The TETTRIs Marketplace is now live as a platform connecting taxonomists, taxonomic services, and the institutions and people that need them across Europe. If you offer specialist identification, collection support, or databasing expertise, the Marketplace is designed to make that visible. Taxonomists are invited to complete a profile.
Tools for DNA barcoding workflows
AmpliPiper (github.com/nhmvienna/AmpliPiper) is an automated pipeline that takes raw, basecalled Oxford Nanopore long reads and runs the full analytical workflow in a single command: quality filtering, demultiplexing, consensus sequence generation, haplotype calling, phylogenetic reconstruction, species delimitation, and species identification against BOLD and GenBank. Read more here https://astrabert.github.io/AmpliPiper-docs/#quickstart, and a preprint here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.11.628038v1.
SPART Explorer (www.spartexplorer.mnhn.fr) is a free web-based platform that clusters DNA sequences into species hypotheses using the ABGD and ASAP delimitation methods, and lets you compare and visualise the resulting partitions interactively alongside a phylogenetic tree — no installation or command-line skills needed.
Genomic workflow for taxonomy provides step-by-step workflows taking you from raw sequencing reads to advanced genome-wide analyses, and is especially tailored for complexes of closely related, cryptic, or recently radiated species where single-gene approaches (like standard barcoding) fall short. Two workflows are available: one for Whole-Genome Resequencing and one for RAD/GBS sequencing with a reference genome.
AI for biodiversity monitoring
TETTRIs developed and tested machine-learning models in three areas: image recognition for 17 European land snail species of the genus Vertigo (TrAILSID, Leibniz Institute Hamburg); acoustic identification of nearly 100 Orthoptera species (TEOSS, Mediterranean workshops); and AI identification of mammal species from snow track photographs submitted by citizen scientists (FOOTPRINTS-CITSCI, Norway). The training from TrAILSID and TEOSS will update the model at Naturalis — the model used in Arter.dk.
In all three projects, AI identification was only as good as the expert-validated reference data used to train it. The tools amplify our ability to monitor biodiversity through citizen science and passive monitoring.
Training the next generation
TETTRIs developed and tested a Train the Trainers methodology in which expert taxonomists train “Future Local Trainers,” who then run their own courses independently through CETAF-DEST.
The satellite SoilMATs applied this model to soil meiofauna — nematodes, rotifers, and tardigrades — training six researchers across Italy, Germany, and Czechia who will in turn train twenty others. INC-STEP trained curators to photograph insect specimens at high resolution, allowing expert taxonomists to pre-screen 40,000 specimens across five Spanish collections remotely. L.U.C.E. trained at least eight early-career researchers specifically in the identification of Italian firefly species.
→ Cookbook Recipe: How to organise an advanced blended course on Taxonomy
