Only because we do need to be able to generate binomials and trinomials correctly. Yde indicated that Fauna Europaea somehow does this. I agree that this does not stop us using the epithet as the primary unit, but I would like to know whether the epithet carries with it a set of dormant gender variants ready to be activated when it gets associated with a new genus - and should we really be tracking the gender of each genus as part of our data exchange model?

To make this more relevant: If we chose (at least for zoology) to equate our nomenclatural objects with epithets rather than binomials, how do we expect applications to use these objects? Are there any special use cases that we need to consider? (Even if there are, they may not include any special GUID behaviour, in which case we can ignore them here.)

Donald

--------------------------------------------------------------- Donald Hobern (dhobern@gbif.org) Programme Officer for Data Access and Database Interoperability Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45-35321483 Mobile: +45-28751483 Fax: +45-35321480 ---------------------------------------------------------------

-----Original Message----- From: Taxonomic Databases Working Group GUID Project [mailto:TDWG-GUID@LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU] On Behalf Of Richard Pyle Sent: 07 November 2005 10:04 To: TDWG-GUID@LISTSERV.NHM.KU.EDU Subject: Re: Topic 3: (Fauna Europaea and gender agreement) GUIDs for Taxon Names and Taxon Concepts

Hi Donald,

You asked Yde:

Can you explain a little more about how you handle epithet agreement ("gender unequivalencies") in this system? I realise this is tangential from the main GUID discussion, but it does seem to be a complication to the task of treating the epithet as the primary unit.

My question to you: why would epithet gender agreement be a complication to the task of treating the epithet as the primary unit? I'm not sure if I follow.

Aloha, Rich