Hi everyone,
A spin-off of the discussion regarding canonicalScientificName (and possibly a solution to it as well) concerns the term "genus".
As mentioned before, most people probably interpret this term as "The name of the genus of the scientificName." - scientificName: *Aster* simplex var. ramosissimus (Torrey & A. Gray) A. Cronquist - acceptedNameUsage: Symphyotrichum lanceolatum (Willdenow) G.L. Nesom subsp. lanceolatum var. lanceolatum - genus: *Aster* - specificEpithet: simplex - infraspecificEpithet: ramosissimus
Even though it is defined as "The full scientific name of the genus in which the taxon is classified.", which leads to this for synonyms: - scientificName: Aster simplex var. ramosissimus (Torrey & A. Gray) A. Cronquist - acceptedNameUsage: *Symphyotrichum* lanceolatum (Willdenow) G.L. Nesom subsp. lanceolatum var. lanceolatum - genus: *Symphyotrichum Nees* - specificEpithet: simplex - infraspecificEpithet: ramosissimus
For more background on this issue, please read: http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=151 & http://lists.tdwg.org/pipermail/tdwg-content/2012-March/002877.html
There are now two possible solutions on the table (by Markus Döring, http://code.google.com/p/darwincore/issues/detail?id=151#c7):
for sharing the genus name part we have 2 options:
A) consistent dwc approach: We keep the dwc:genus definition as it is to be inline with the other classification terms including subgenus. All of these should contain the accepted classification, not necessarily the part of the name. Two new terms genericName and infragenericEpithet are then proposed to hold the genus part of a name and the infra generic part. This approach keeps the dwc terms consistent and does not mix classification terms with terms for atomized names.
B) least change approach: Taking into account that many people already use dwc:genus for the name part we alter the definition of the term as proposed here. This results in the least impact on existing publishers and probably consumers too. But it has the drawback of i) dwc terms are inconsistent with family & subgenus being the classification, not the name part, ii) no option anymore to share the genus classification, iii) no way to share all infra generic names
I would hope we can start a vote around those 2 options with A) being my clear favorite
We need your opinion and input to move this issue forward.
Thanks,
Peter