It seems to me there are at least two issues:
(1) what to do with unranked (or awkwardly ranked), informally named, taxonomic groups and (2) whether to put a 'value' into the epithet field -- when the specimen is not identified to the species level.
With regard to the second issue - I'd recommend leaving that field empty (NULL)... in both of your examples, the specimen has not been associated with an available species name. Using 'sp' only confuses things because 'sp' is not an epithet. Is there any information content difference between "Terellia (virens group)" and "Terellia sp. (virens group)". "n.sp" similarly is not an epithet -- although it has 'some' information -- this is something that could be put in a field not associated with nomenclature, but with notes about the specimens (.e.g, that someone thinks it's an undescribed speces).
With regard to the first issue, I'm not sure how an informal rank would best be dealt with. The species groups you mentioned are in some regards "superspecies" and perhaps Article 6.2 of the ICZN is applicable (see below). But I'm pretty certain that superspecies aren't a darwincore rank...or how they'd be dealt with.
-Chris
6.2. Names of aggregates of species or subspecies. A specific name may be added in parentheses after the genus-group name, or be interpolated in parentheses between the genus-group name and the specific name, to denote an aggregate of species within a genus-group taxon; and a subspecific name may be interpolated in parentheses between the specific and subspecific names to denote an aggregate of subspecies within a species; such names, which must always begin with a lower-case letter and be written in full, are not counted in the number of words in a binomen or trinomen. The Principle of Priority applies to such names [Art. 23.3.3]; for their availability see Article 11.9.3.5.
Recommendation 6B. Taxonomic meaning of interpolated names. An author who wishes to denote an aggregate at either of the additional taxonomic levels mentioned in Article 6.2 should place a term to indicate the taxonomic meaning of the aggregate in the same parentheses as its interpolated species-group name on the first occasion that the notation is used in any work.
Example. In the butterfly genus Ornithoptera Boisduval, 1832 the species O. priamus (Linnaeus, 1758) is the earliest-named member of an aggregate of vicarious species that includes also O. lydius Felder, 1865 and O. croesus Wallace, 1865. The taxonomic meaning accorded to the O. priamus aggregate may be expressed in the notation "Ornithoptera (superspecies priamus)", and the members of the aggregate by the notations "O. (priamus) priamus (Linnaeus, 1758)", "O. (priamus) lydius Felder, 1865", and "O. (priamus) croesus Wallace, 1865".
On Mar 27, 2012, at 12:58 AM, Peter Oboyski wrote:
Hi all,
Forgive me if this has been discussed already. I am trying to decide how to deal with species groups in our database. Here are some real life examples.
Eg. Terellia sp. (virens group)
option 1: Genus: Terellia SpecificEpithet: virens TaxonCertainty: species group
option 2: Genus: Terellia SpecificEpithet: sp. (virens group)
Eg. Oecetis new sp.? inconspicua group
option 1: Genus: Oecetis SpecificEpithet: new sp. TaxonCertainty: "?" how do I incorporate the group?
option 2: Genus: Oecetis SpecificEpithet: n.sp. (inconspicua group) TaxonCertainty: "?"
Peter T Oboyski University of California http://nature.berkeley.edu/~poboyski/
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Christopher Marshall Curator & Collections Manager Oregon State Arthropod Collection Zoology - Oregon State University Corvallis OR, 97331-2914 marshach@science.oregonstate.edu