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Welcome to the Tree of Sex Ontology (TOSO) wiki!

All the information in this wiki derives from decisions and discussions made by the Tree of Sex Ontology Operations Team (OT). It is intended as the single place for action planning and it is currently under construction by transfer of information in shared documents and spreadsheets. In the future, all information will be accessible via this repository.

General Introduction

ToS Ontology will be an “domain ontology”, based on existing OBO best practices, meaning it will aim to reuse as many terms of other OBO ontologies in it; Only terms that are not suitably defined elsewhere, will be added with a definition.

Primarily we would like the terms to be sourced from OBO Foundry ontologies - the starting place to look is PATO and then expand with other selected OBO ontologies.

Ontology Scope

What is the domain that the ontology will cover?

• Any process and/or trait related to reproduction included in the Tree of Sex database

For what we are going to use the ontology?

• Formalise concepts adopted by the ToS consortium and database
• Data validation of the ToS database
• Advanced browsing of the database using parent terms, synonyms and so on based on collaborative work with the Database Integration OT
• Collaborate with selection and definition of keywords by the Literature Search OT
• Create definitions following the principles of the Ethics and Inclusion OT

For what types of topics/questions the information in the ontology should provide answers?

• Reproductive biology
• Cellular and organismal processes
• Sex traits and phenotypes
• Eg. Describing the diversity of sex determination systems in a taxonomy/phylogenetic framework
• Evolution of reproductive strategies, mechanisms and associated phenotypes

Who will use and maintain the ontology?

• Ontology OT will initiate an ontology draft and register it with OBO Foundry
• Public can suggest terms
• Ontology curators can revise and edit
• Anyone can join ontology team