Rich, as usual no time to write a long mail, but I wanted to quickly respond to your 3 intended uses below. The idea is that everyone of them has a dwc:scientificName term and potentially also the other terms you listed at the end like rank.
originalTaxonNameID and acceptedTaxonID are still properties of the described dwc:scientificName and act like foreign keys linking one name/taxon to another. So if you have some sort of synonym (indicated by dwc:taxonomicStatus) the dwc:acceptedTaxonID will point to what is considered the accepted taxon. While originalTaxonNameID will point to the original name record. The verbatim non ID versions of these two terms do essentially the same, but are based on name string matching. They are not meant to replace the use of dwc:scientificName in a record.
Maybe its best to look at the examples Dave put together: (the tax/nom status columns are subject to change)
http://code.google.com/p/gbif-ecat/wiki/GNAsynonymsExample
Markus
On Sep 10, 2009, at 5:47 AM, Richard Pyle wrote:
Dear All,
After a series of off-list conversations with Peter DeVries, Dave Remsen, and others; and thanks to John W. for pointing me to the active list of terms, I would like to offer some additional thoughts on the "Core Taxon" terms; but before I do, I want to make sure I understand how the existing terms are intended to be used.
From the perspective of an Occurrence (specimen/observation/etc.) record
represented through DwC, it seems to me that there are three sets of name/taxon terms:
- "As Identified"
[Information about how the record is currently identified.]
- scientificName
- scientificNameID
- scientificNameAuthorship
- taxonAccordingTo
- taxonAccordingToID
- "As originally established"
[Information about the original name as established under the Code]
- originalTaxonName
- originalTaxonNameID
- namePublishedIn
- namePublishedInID
- "Opinion of Data Provider"
[Information about how the data provider interprets the correct name.]
- acceptedTaxon
- acceptedTaxonID
I'm not entirely certain which "set" of names the following terms would apply to:
- rank
- verbatimRank
- higherTaxonName
- higherTaxonNameID
- higherClassification
- kingdom
- phylum
- class
- order
- family
- genus
- subgenus
- specificEpithet
- infraspecificEpithet
According to the current draft spreadsheet (http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tZ3c04UGzRgalNxZMmcijcQ&output=ht... ) , it seems that the first two apply specifically to the "scientificName", and therefore belong in the first set (i.e., rank according to how it was identified; not necessarily how the Data Provider now treats it, or what the original rank was). I assume the rest all apply to "Opinion of Data Provider"; but this is not explicitly stated.
For example, consider the specimen BPBM 13492. It was most recently identified as "Centropyge flavicauda Fraser-Brunner 1933". Our current treatment of this species is as a junior synonym of "Centropyge fisheri (Snyder 1904)". The original description "fisheri" by Snyder (1904) placed it in the genus "Holacanthus".
I'm assuming that I would present this record via DwC using the above terms as follows:
- As Identified:
scientificName: Centropyge flavicauda scientificNameID: http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp?s pid=53548 scientificNameAuthorship: Fraser-Brunner 1933 taxonAccordingTo: Allen, G.R. 1980. Butterfly and angelfishes of the world. Volume II. Mergus Publishers. Pp. 149-352. taxonAccordingToID: http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/getref.asp?id=22 764
- As originally established:
- originalTaxonName: Centropyge flavicauda Fraser-Brunner 1933
- originalTaxonNameID:
http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp?s pid=53548
- namePublishedIn: Fraser-Brunner, A. 1933. A revision of the
chaetodont fishes of the subfamily Pomacanthinae. Proceedings of the General Meetings for Scientific Business of the Zoological Society of London 1933 (pt 3, no. 30): 543-599, Pl. 1.
- namePublishedInID:
http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/getref.asp?id=67 1
- Opinion of Data Provider:
acceptedTaxon: Centropyge fisheri acceptedTaxonID: http://research.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatget.asp?s pid=53548
If my assumptions are correct, then "specificEpithet" would be "fisheri", not "flavicauda" -- correct?
Once I get a sense from this list whether I am interpreting the terms correctly (or not), I'll offer some specific comments on the taxon terms.
Aloha, Rich
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