[Taxacom] Digitizing Science Collections

[Stephen Thorpe]

note that I am?primarily arguing against the *uncritical* use of label data (which happens), and suggesting that in cases of doubt, the only way to settle it is to go out into the field and verify presence/absence
?
for an example of how not to do it, see p. 11 in: 
Matthews, E.G. 2003: Ulomotypus Broun a member of the new subfamily Palorinae, with remarks on Aphtora Bates and Demtrius Broun (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae). New Zealand entomologist, 26: 7?14.
http://www.ento.org.nz/nzentomologist/abstract.php?volume_issue=j26_1&first_page=7

not really the fault of the Australian author, but the peer review editorial process should have picked it up. Yes, a single specimen of Ulomotypus laevigatus (a fairly large flightless beetle) is labelled as being from Whangarei (north of the North Island), while all others are from the South Island, but to simply list it without comment is hardly helpful! For some other taxa in Hymenoptera or Diptera, for example, such a distribution pattern could be?a genuine consequence?of small sample size (so it is not "objectively" a red flag), but this is most unlikely in the present case, and simple mislabelling will be to blame. An N.Z. entomologist might be able to see this as an obvious case of mislabelling, but not so others, so at least some sort of comment was warranted. This is a case of "too much objectivity", instead of utilising genuine local knowledge and?judgement with the fauna...

Stephen



________________________________
From: John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
To: Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> 
Cc: "TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Wednesday, 16 May 2012 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Digitizing Science Collections


Going out an personally recording the distribution is not always feasible. Hence using label data from specimens is sometimes the only practical option. In a current revision of a ghost moth genus in Latin America I do not have the $ to collect specimens from the wild and so have to rely on specimens collected by others. 

John Grehan


On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 6:24 PM, Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz> wrote:

label data is a huge can of worms for all sorts of reasons! After having thought the issue through at some length, I have come to the probably rather unpopular conclusion that it is a bad idea to think that the totality of label data for any given taxon is a useful thing to have! It is somewhat analogous to the example of using WoRMS as a source for that squat lobster article on WP ... given the way the WoRMS page was at the time, it was best to just not mention it at all! There is a certain irony that it is common nowadays for scientists to spend money going on collecting tours to get fresh material of taxa for use in DNA analysis. Actually, it would be better to go on a collecting tour to gather reliable distributional information for the taxon! Any distribution map based on the uncritical acceptance of label data is likely to be problematic, unles the map is so coarse that points cover a significant proportion of the planet! Even worse is displaying a
>?distribution map of a tiny subsample of available label data! If you want to know the geographical distribution of a taxon, you gotta go out and measure it ... carefully!
>?
>Stephen
>
>
>________________________________
>From: David Campbell <pleuronaia at gmail.com>
>To: TAXACOM at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>Sent: Wednesday, 16 May 2012 10:01 AM
>Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Digitizing Science Collections
>
>
>> Unfortunately, original data labels are often extremely misleading,
>> especially regarding distributional information. After georeferencing
>> over 200,000 insect specimens from multiple institutions, the figures
>> work out to over 20% of all original labels have significant
>> omissions or ambiguities (the latter category being primarily things
>> like abbreviations, uncertain reference points, uncertain date
>> formats, or handwriting problems), and some 5% of all original labels
>> have genuine errors of one sort or another (mostly typographical
>> errors). I doubt such problems are unique to insect labels.
>
>I can confirm that mollusk labels have similar issues with similarly
>high frequency, though I have not tallied percentages. In fact,
>insects may have better than average quality of average data because
>fewer specimens survive from the "I picked these up somewhere when my
>ship sailed around the world" era.? Having a misidentified specimen
>with good locality data is far more useful than a correctly identified
>specimen with bad locality data, as the identification can be fixed
>from the specimen.? Someone knowledgeable about the taxon or locality
>may be able to recognize that a record is supect, even without
>examining the specimen.? But all data in a database needs competent
>checking to be reliable.? And many larger collections will include
>items from various sources, of varying reliability for their
>localities and identifications.
>
>The problem is compounded when online databases grab information from
>varied sources without careful verification or good harmonization
>protocols.? In particular, homonyms can lead to perfectly good
>information from one database being presented wrongly in another one,
>which claims that corrections should be referred back to the first
>database.
>
>--
>Dr. David Campbell
>Collections Assistant
>The Paleontological Research Institution
>1259 Trumansburg Road
>Ithaca NY 14850
>
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