[tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in DwCscientificName: good or bad?

Chuck Miller Chuck.Miller at mobot.org
Wed Nov 24 23:36:54 CET 2010


I guess I need to do some more DwC homework.

Is the Genus element in current DwC to be used for the generic epithet of a binomial/trinomial, or for the Genus classification/rank of the species?  If the Genus classification/rank and the generic epithet are different, does current DwC have a way to distinguish them? 

Isn't an infragenericNameElement another uninomialNameElement, just like Tribe, Subtribe, Subfamily, and all the rest?  (ie. name at the rank of genus and above)

A generic way to handle this would be firstEpithet, secondEpithet, thirdEpithet, etc.  By using a string like infraspecificEpithet, an attribute is added to the position of the epithet.  Or by using the string uninomialNameElement, a different attribute is added to the firstEpithet (which is the only epithet in that case).  I'm probably overthinking it.

Chuck



-----Original Message-----
From: Markus Döring [mailto:m.doering at mac.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 3:33 PM
To: Richard Pyle
Cc: Tony.Rees at csiro.au; Chuck Miller; tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org; dmozzherin at eol.org
Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in DwCscientificName: good or bad?

I think we are hitting the problem now quite well.
A quick response to your suggestion, Rich. Mostly agree with your conclusions:

> verbatimScientificName
> As I suggested in an earlier post, this would be "the complete set of 
> textual elements useful for recognizing a unique scientific name", 
> exactly as they appear in the original source.
yes for the definition, but Im not sure if removing scientificName from the dwc terms is a true option though. 
Its the most known term of all...

> uninomialNameElement
> Used for all names at the rank of genus and above; would also replace 
> "genus" in DwC.
Genus will still be needed to represent the denormalised classification, but not for the parsed bits.

> infragenericNameElement
> Better term for "subgenus".
Probably same is true for subgenus

> specificEpithet
> As in existing DwC.
> 
> infraspecificEpithet
> As in existing DwC.
> 
> scientificNameAuthorship
> As in existing DwC.
> 
> I don't really agree with Tony on the "clutter" argument for introducing a
> single "canonicalName" term to replace the parsed uninomialNameElement [aka
> "genus"], infragenericNameElement [aka "subgenus"], specificEpithet, and
> infraspecificEpithet. (Side question to Tony -- would canonicalName include
> "var.", "f." etc., hence obviating the need for TaxonRank as well?)
> After all, "Aus bus xus" requires exactly the same number of bytes as
> "Aus,bus,xus" in a DwCA file. Of course, if verbatimScientificName  [aka
> scientificName] is required, we'd have redundancy and hence doubling of
> bytes. However, if defined as verbatimScientificName as above, it would not
> really be redundant information if the parsed bits were defined as
> representing the Code-corrected version of the name, and due to the fact
> that the verbatimScientificName will often be different from a canonical
> concatenation of the parsed bits according to some standard format/formula.
> 
> So, to me, the main questions to answer are:
> 
> 1) How does the existing DwC/DwCA structure fail to meet the needs of
> providers and/or users, in terms of loss of information, potential for
> misrepresentation of information, or inefficient or ineffective transfer of
> information (i.e. overburdening either the provider or the client).
> 
> 2) What are the most effective and least disruptive ways to correct the
> failures identified in #1 above, in terms of re-defining existing terms, vs.
> introducing new (and potentially redundant) terms, vs. a complete new set of
> terms that may be semantically less confusing to taxonomists (as above)?
> 
> Aloha,
> Rich
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Markus Döring [mailto:m.doering at mac.com]
>> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 2:30 AM
>> To: Richard Pyle
>> Cc: Tony.Rees at csiro.au; Chuck.Miller at mobot.org; tdwg-
>> content at lists.tdwg.org; dmozzherin at eol.org
>> Subject: Re: [tdwg-content] [tdwg-tag] Inclusion of authorship in
>> DwCscientificName: good or bad?
>> 
>>>> I just had a quick look at the first few thousand data records coming
>>>> into OBIS for my region (Australia). Just about every supplier who
>>>> includes authority as dwc:scientificNameAuthor has used
>>>> dwc:scientificName "incorrectly" i.e., for the canonical name not the
>>>> canonical name + author. This data then flows into GBIF, ALA, etc.
>>>> and circulates in this form. So "users" are already ignoring the
>>>> definition of dwc:scientificName in practice, it would seem, with no
>>>> apparent ill effects (?) - not sure whether this is good or bad,
>>>> hence the title of my original question which prompted this thread...
>>> 
>>> OK, so here's the question:
>>> 
>>> Is it more disruptive to re-define dwc:scientificName to explicitly
>>> exclude authorship?
>> Thats definitely something Id like to avoid!
>> We really need one place to keep the most explicit form of the name.
>> 
>> From seeing real data coming in I would coin the definition for
> scientificName
>> that it should *contain the most complete, verbatim name string*.
>> If you happen to have only a canonical, use the canonical. If you happen
> to
>> have canonical + authorship parsed, join them if you can (its usually not
> a
>> simple concatenation, beware).
>> 
>> Markus
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> 
>>> Or, is it more disruptive to leave the existing (loose) definition of
>>> scientificName intact, and create more term(s) with more precise
>>> meanings, which we feel can help facilitate sharing of infomration?
>>> 
>>> Rich
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> tdwg-content mailing list
>>> tdwg-content at lists.tdwg.org
>>> http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg-content
> 
> 



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