Taxonomic hierarchy in SDD

Tim Jones tim.jones at MARINE.CSIRO.AU
Tue Nov 27 13:46:22 CET 2001


On the taxonomic heirarchy thread - I agree wholeheartedly that the
heirarchy should not be part of the description. Could it rather be a
recommended link to a classification?

We often come across the situation where one person has a diferent view of
the hierarchy to another. If the heirarchy is not part of the descriptive
data but can be refered to from an alternative source then would it be
possible to use one (or another) source depending on your point of view.
That way you could follow say the ITIS calssification if it suits or if the
framework is published any other hierarchy that supports the framework
interface.

Tim

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Database Manager
Centre for Research on Introduced Marine Pests
GPO Box 1538, Hobart Tas 7000, Australia.
Phone : (03) 62325222 (switch), (03) 62325213 (direct)
Mobile: 0411 560057
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E-mail: tim.jones at marine.csiro.au
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-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Shattuck [mailto:Steve.Shattuck at CSIRO.AU]
Sent: Tuesday, 27 November 2001 1:36 PM
To: TDWG-SDD at USOBI.ORG
Subject: Taxonomic hierarchy in SDD


The full taxonomic hierarchy of the included taxa/items certainly must be
supported by the standard (and it will be addressed after we deal with
simple characters, states and items).  If the creator of the dataset doesn't
think it's important then they can choose to leave it out; if the user of
the data doesn't think it's important then they can ignore it.  This will be
especially important if we intend to support inheritance and compilation up
and down the classification (as has been suggested by several of us).

Jumping the gun a bit, I would think these relationships would be stored
either as a separate nested set of elements with ID's linking to specific
items, or the items themselves would be nested with parent items containing
their children.

Steve Shattuck
CSIRO Entomology
biolink at ento.csiro.au




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