-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Pyle [mailto:
deepreef@bishopmuseum.org]
Sent: Friday, 11 June 2010 9:03 a.m.
To: Kevin Richards; 'Peter DeVries'
Cc:
tdwg-content@lists.tdwg.org; Jerry Cooper
Subject: RE: [tdwg-content] Name is species concept thinking
> This is something that has been slightly confused over the years, ie there
seems to be 2 ways of defining a "taxon concept":
> 1. A Taxon Name (nomenclatural data) + Literature Reference - ie Name X as
defined in article Y
> 2. As you have said a grouping of data that define a taxon concept (Name +
Reference + Synonyms + Type Specimen + Protologue, .)
I don't think of these as two different ways of defining a concept. I see
#1 as a way of *pointing to* a taxon concept definition, and #2 as the
concept definition itself. Basically, #1 (usage instance) is effectively a
container or an identifier for the taxon concept definition.
However, there is somewhat of a dichotmy in the way that taxon concepts are
defined - one is by included members (i.e., specimens, presumably including
at least one name-bearing type specimen, from which a name-label is
derived), the other is by properties (i.e. characters -- morphologic,
genetic, or otherwise). In practice, most concept definitions include both.
But I think the "definition" of the concept (i.e., the circumscription
boundaries) is the same for both -- it's just that those boundaries can be
articulated in different ways (i.e., by examplar members, and by purported
properties).
> 1 has been covered quite well with the various schemas we have come up
> with over the years, but I think these schemas have failed to capture
> 2 very well (the data fields are there, but the encompassing ID is not),
ie
Agreed -- sort of. I think the schemas are there, but have not been
organized appropriately (yet). See below.
> TaxonName ID = N1, FullName = "Aus bus"
> Reference ID = R1, Citation = "Richards, how to define a taxon concept"
> TaxonConcept ID = C1, NameID = N1, ReferenceID = R1
> BUT, the taxon concept C1 does not encompass all related data that defines
that concept (synonyms etc)
No, but it could, through a network of linkages, as I tried to describe in
one of my recent posts.
> To do that we need more Concept Ids and relationships between these
concepts, eg
Exactly! And we need a schema-based process to capture the relevant
information (diagnoses, etc.), anchored to the Concept Ids. At a basic
level, Plazi/TaxonX does this. However, it usually only goes as far as the
text-blob. To parse the text blob, we need to either look towards SDD (for
character-based concept definition stuff) or DwC/Occurrence (for
specimen-based concept definition stuff).
> ConceptRelationship ID=CR1 ConceptFromID=C2, ConceptToID =C1,
RelationshipType='has preferred name'
Yes, I agree we need this as well! But again, I see this as a way of
networking pointers to taxon concept defintions, not describing the
definitions themselves.
Man, these conversations really hurt my brain.... :-)
Aloha,
Rich