Hi everyone,
In a recent tweet [1] Roderic Page reminded me that in Darwin Core, we don't have a ready-to-use scientificName field. The definition for scientificName [2] asks for the full verbose name, including authors. I think this is a good definition (see below), but it also means that in a lot of use cases, names need to be parsed before they can be used or matched. I am currently helping collections publish their data for Candensys [3] and as a data producer I am happy we can provide all the information we have in scientificName, but as a data user, I get frustrated every time I see those long verbose botanical names with multiple authors. I am convinced that our data would be more usable if we had an additional canonicalScientificName term.
Which is why I am now officially requesting it on the Darwin Core code site: http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=150 (see below). This has been discussed in detail before [4], but no consensus was reached. I hope we can get our act together this time!
Regards,
Peter Desmet
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[1] https://twitter.com/#!/rustyrussell22/status/179500954901692417 [2] http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/index.htm#scientificName [3] http://www.canadensys.net [4] http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2010-November/thread.html#1976
==New Term Recommendation== Submitter: Peter Desmet
Justification: The scientific name is probably the most used element of an occurrence/taxon, but currently Darwin Core does not provide a single ready-to-use-field for this. A canonicalScientificName with the scientific name as a uninomial, binomial or trinomial could solve this problem. The current terms are not sufficient: - scientificName: verbose, used to record all components of a scientific name (if available), including authorship(s) and rankmarker(s). It is critical to keep this definition, as this term is sometimes the only place to share certain information, e.g.: quadrinomials, intermediate botanical authors, hybrid formulas, etc. The disadvantage of only having this verbose notation is that the user needs to parse the name before he/she can use or match it. - genus, specificEpithet, infraspecificEpithet: concatenated, this terms are identical to the canonicalScientificName for genera, species and infraspecific taxa. For higher taxa or infrageneric taxa, these terms are not sufficient. In addition, there is some ambiguity regarding the genus definition: for synonyms, is it the accepted genus or the genus that is part of the synonym name? See: http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2010-November/002052.html. In the former case, the genus cannot be used to concatenate a canonicalScientificName.
The need for this term has been discussed thoroughly already (see: http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2010-November/thread.html#1976), but no consensus was reached. I'd like to reopen the discussion and I hope that a consensus can be reached quickly, so our data can be used more easily.
Definition: The scientific name as a uninomial, binomial or trinomial. When forming part of an Identification, this should be the name in lowest level taxonomic rank that can be determined. This term should not contain authorship(s), rankmarker(s) or identification qualifications. If the scientific name cannot be expressed as a uni-, bi- or trinomial (e.g. hybrid formulas), do not use this term (use scientificName instead).
Comment: Examples: "Carex" (genus), "Vulpes vulpes" (species), "Anaphalis margaritacea occidentalis" (plant variety)
Refines:
Has Domain:
Has Range:
Replaces:
ABCD 2.06: