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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=350403919-10062010><FONT color=#0000ff
size=2 face=Arial>I don't think that's right. Names are pointers to
species concepts, but are not concepts themselves. A label for a species
concept would look like "Aus bus sensu Author/Citation" or "Aus bus sec.
Author/Citation". Also, of course, the name is not, in itself, a unique
identifier (in something like 10% of cases -- which in my mind is
non-trivial).</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN class=350403919-10062010>Also,
I disagree with the idea that Aedes triseriatus and Ochlerotatus triseriatus
necessarily refer to different taxon concepts. To me, the "concept" is the
circumscribed set of organisms. If I curcumscribe a set of organisms that
I label with "Aedes triseriatus", and then later decide that this set of
organisms is best classified in the genus Ocherotatus, then naming it as such
does not change the circumscribed set of organisms. It certainly may have
implications on the concepts for the genera "Aedes" and "Ochlerotatus", but in
my mind, it has no effect on the implied circumscription (=Concept, sensu me) of
what is indicated by the species epithet "triseriatus".</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN class=350403919-10062010>I do
not think it makes sense to include hierarchical clasification as part of the
terminal taxon "concept". Taxa at each hierarchical rank are, in my mind,
defined by their contents; not their higher classification.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN class=350403919-10062010>The
way I visualize it, there is a many:many relationship between names and concepts
(I *think* this applies no matter what you mean by "name", and no matter what
you mean by "concept"). The same circumscription of organisms can be
labelled by many different names, and the same name may apply to many different
circumscriptions of organisms (not just homonyms/homographs, but also
lumper/splitter issues).</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010>Therefore, I don't think it is appropriate to try to
equate names:concepts as 1:1, or even many:1.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010>Aloha,</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010>Rich</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=350403919-10062010></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial><SPAN class=350403919-10062010>P.S. I
certainly think that "Aedes triseriatus" and "Ochlerotatus triseriatus" are
different "things", just not (necessarily) different taxon concepts.
Actually, from an informatics perspective, I think that treating these different
combinations as unique/identified objects doesn't gain us much. I think
it's *MUCH* more robust to parse out the different individual usages of each
combination as the identified objects, then derive the unique
combinations/spellings/etc. from those usages. If the notion of indexing
usages seems too intimidating, then start with the easy ones -- like the
original useages of each of the name elements ("Aedes", "Ochlerotatus", and
"triseriatus"), and the key treatments (e.g., whoever first combined
"triseriatus" with the genus "Ochlerotatus", and/or whoever robustly defined
alternate concepts for each).</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#0000ff size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
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<FONT size=2 face=Tahoma><B>From:</B> tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org
[mailto:tdwg-content-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Peter
DeVries<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, June 10, 2010 9:38 AM<BR><B>To:</B>
tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org<BR><B>Subject:</B> [tdwg-content] Name is species
concept thinking<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>I was looking through the latest DarwinCore and comments related to
the TaxonConceptID.
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Since the name serves as both a unique identifier and a phylogenetic
hypothesis, you are effectively saying that observations labeled </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><I>Aedes triseriatus</I></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>and</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><I>Ochlerotatus triseriatus</I> </DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Are separate species concepts, and should therefore be treated as
separate things.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>i.e. The name is the concept.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Also since there are several name variants for each "species", how do you
distinguish which of these nameID's are the same species and which are
different?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>- Pete</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>----------------------------------------------------------------<BR>Pete
DeVries<BR>Department of Entomology<BR>University of Wisconsin -
Madison<BR>445 Russell Laboratories<BR>1630 Linden Drive<BR>Madison, WI
53706<BR>GeoSpecies Knowledge Base <BR>About the GeoSpecies Knowledge
Base<BR>------------------------------------------------------------<BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>