Globally Unique Identifier

[Gregor Hagedorn]

> Regarding assignment of GUIDs to electronic records rather than
> physical specimens -- do you feel the same way about taxonomic names?
> I'd hate to have 5-10 ID numbers for every taxon name (e.g., one
> generated by GBIF, one generated by ITIS, one generated by
> Species2000, etc.)  My understanding of the whole point of BioGUIDs
> was to get away from this sort of duplication.

Yes and no. I think the question collapses in the case of
nomenclatural records. I believe the codes should move and endorse
nomenclatural databases to be authoritative for providing
authoritative name records. Since these are data objects, a GUID is
natural to them, and real world (which is abstract in the case of
names anyways) and data world are congruent.

I am more reserved about demands to provide a central registry for
taxon concepts (or "derived/secondary" taxon concepts, if the
nomenclatural act of creating a name itself is considered a taxon
concept as well):

If somebody publishes a description of a taxon in Germany, printed or
digital, perhaps providing a GUID of the nomenclatural data record
the description assigns itself to, perhaps providing a DOI for its
publication - I see no reason to go to a separate database, create a
taxon concept record there, and then cite it back in your own digital
publication. Jessie Kennedy and I differ on this point.

Gregor----------------------------------------------------------
Gregor Hagedorn (G.Hagedorn at bba.de)
Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety
Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA)
Königin-Luise-Str. 19           Tel: +49-30-8304-2220
14195 Berlin, Germany           Fax: +49-30-8304-2203