A method to implement continuous characters in digital identification keys that estimates the probability of an annotation

Abstract

Assigning a species identity to an organism is a fundamental and essential activity in a wide array of disciplines including ecology, conservation, forestry/agriculture, fisheries, and land use planning and assessment (Lyal et al., [aps31247-bib-0022]; Barrows et al., [aps31247-bib-0001]). The idea of what a species is, conceptually and operationally, is a topic with a rich philosophical debate and history (see Mayden [aps31247-bib-0024] and Wilkins [aps31247-bib-0038] and references therein). In practice, most identifications of plant species are made based on morphology using phenotypic char