An interesting side discussion started up from my earlier post and I thought it might beworth discussion on the general list. I expect there will be a number of different opinions on this subject which might prove enlightening.
What is a species?
The way I have constructed my system I consider species to be real things too which different taxonomic hypothesis are applied.
A collector or curator would then decide which species concept they believe is the best match for their specimen or group of specimens.
Those individuals would then be tied to a particular species concept. (Not necessarily a specific genus species)
Statements or properties could then be associated with particular species concepts.
For instance:
This Culicidoid species concept is a member of the Anophelinoid Group and thereby inherits the following properties:
Maxillary palps about as long as proboscus, not strongly recurved Scutellum evenly rounded Scutellum seta more or less evenly distributed Most like diagram http://.....
I am not sure that you could make useful statements like this if specimens are abstracted as an array of names, and if species are not real things that are separate from individual taxonomic hypothesis.
Note I use Anophelinoid rather than Anophelinae to avoid tying this group of morphological characters to a specific taxonomic hypothesis.
Under this model genera, families and subspecies (as they are now used) are thought of as human constructed clades and are not real in the same sense as species are real. A species exists whether or not a human has chosen to describe and name it.
There also seems to be a difference in how ecologists, medical entomologists and taxonomists think of species. The former tend to view species as real things while the later see them as a human constructed grouping, where the taxonomic hypothesis is the species concept.
From the perspective of the semantic web, species concepts defined in these
different ways have different meanings and may not be able to be merged directly. At least that is my current thinking ....
How do others think of species? --------------------------------------------------------------- Pete DeVries Department of Entomology University of Wisconsin - Madison 445 Russell Laboratories 1630 Linden Drive Madison, WI 53706 ------------------------------------------------------------