[tdwg-content] Does a species entail a specific classification or does it have many classifications.

[Peter DeVries]

This is in response to David's example here;
http://code.google.com/p/gbif-ecat/wiki/Nom5ExampleMytilusedulis

It demonstrates a number of issues, the main one being it is not clear what
the intent of the GBIF submitter was.

Mytilus edulis Linnaeus 1758  <= Appears to be the correct name
Mytilus edulis Linné 1758       <= Appears to be a lexical variant of the
correct name
Mytilus edulis d' Orbigny        <= Is this an error, a different
description or a different species?
Mytilus edulis Pennant           <= Is this an error, a different
description or a different species?
Mytilus edulis                        <= Is this an ommission, an error, a
different description or a different species?


The intent of the GBIF contributor is in some cases not clear from the list
above.

It is unclear what species they actually mean, and it is unclear if intend
on entailing a specific classification or not.

Was it clear that they thought *Mytilus edulis* Linnaeus 1758 = *Mytilus
edulis* Linné 1758 or not?

How do you determine their intent from the simple name string?

I think the intent be clearer if the submitter included a species concept
URI with their submission.

A URI that showed that a species has multiple often dynamic classifications,
some of which are linkable via semantic web URI's.

For example:

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_mussel) =>
http://dbpedia.org/resource/Blue_mussel
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Mollusca
Class Bivalvia
Subclass Heterodonta
Order Mytiloida
Family Mytilidae
Subfamily Mytilinae
Genus Mytilus
Species Mytilus edulis

ITIS (79454)
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Mollusca
Class Bivalvia
Subclass Pteriomorphia
Order Mytiloida
Family Mytilidae
Genus Mytilus
Species Mytilus edulis

WORMS (140480)
Biota
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Mollusca
Class Bivalvia
Subclass Pteriomorphia
Order Mytiloida
Family Mytilidae
Genus Mytilus
Species Mytilus edulis

CoL (6979242)
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Mollusca
Class Bivalvia
Order Mytiloida
Family Mytilidae
Genus Mytilus
Species Mytilus edulis

NCBI (6550) => "http://purl.uniprot.org/taxonomy/6550"/
cellular organisms
Eukaryota
Fungi/Metazoa group
Metazoa
Eumetazoa
Bilateria
Coelomata
Protostomia
Mollusca
Bivalvia
Pteriomorphia
Mytiloida
Mytiloidea
Mytilidae
Mytilinae
Mytilus
Mytilus edulis

EUNIS
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum MOLLUSCA
Class Bivalvia
Order Anisomyaria
Family Mytilidae
Genus Mytilus
Mytilus edulis Linné, 1758


The example below is not the same species as above but it shows how the
intent might be made clearer.

Urosalpinx cinerea (Say 1822) => "by this I mean the same species concept as
se:Zom2X" => http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/Zom2X.html

* This would be better if the concept description had more data like
photo's, type specimens etc, but it does link to them and DNA barcodes.
  The next version will also link to GBIF =>
http://data.gbif.org/species/13750666/

HTML  http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/Zom2X.html
RDF    http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/Zom2X.rdf
<http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/Zom2X.rdf>TXNburner* (
http://lsd.taxonconcept.org/describe/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flod.taxonconcept.org%2Fses%2FZom2X%23Species
)
Sindice      http://sig.ma/search?pid=7a8281129fa5ae55af919c7b90e97544

* If this did not go through your email correctly you can get to it from the
 http://lod.taxonconcept.org/ses/Zom2X.html or http://bit.ly/hyTnXf

These are not perfect but they already make it more clear what data sets
relate to the same species and what data sets relate to different species.
By linking to one of these, you are accepting that a species can have
multiple classifications and there can be multiple names for the your
intended concept.

Respectfully,

- Pete
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
TaxonConcept Knowledge Base <http://www.taxonconcept.org/> / GeoSpecies
Knowledge Base <http://lod.geospecies.org/>
About the GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <http://about.geospecies.org/>
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