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[Taxacom] taxonomic names databases

vbianchi at uns.edu.ar vbianchi at uns.edu.ar
Fri Aug 26 10:37:22 CDT 2016 

Dear all...

  I and certainly all the users of Species Fungorum are GRATEFUL to  
Paul and the others guys which find the eighth day!
A spanish saying tells "solo aquel que hace se equivoca" something  
like  only one who does ... can make mistakes

  Thanks for the great task

Virginia


Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org> escribió:

> Thanks for noting the error Paul. You are correct that it is indeed  
> easy to find these errors but the challenge is to find that illusive  
> eighth day in the week which will provide the time to carry out the  
> corrections. I am aware of similar errors but ... w.r.t. Species  
> Fungorum, one error out of 130,000+ currently recognized species is  
> quite a good accuracy rate and certainly not in the category of  
> 'disseminates a lot of nonsense'.
>
>
> Regards,
>
>
> Paul
>
> ________________________________
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of Paul  
> van Rijckevorsel <dipteryx at freeler.nl>
> Sent: 26 August 2016 13:17
> To: taxacom
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] taxonomic names databases
>
> No doubt there are many such cases. This makes me very
> uneasy whenever somebody tries to pass off the Catalogue
> of Life as a source of "vetted names". This "vetting" does
> not extend even to eliminating obvious homonyms (and the
> combinations with these), which should be easy enough.
>
> For example, the Catalogue of Life has two Romanoa's,
> one plant and one fungus, each with one species.
> In this case it is very easy to look in the Index Fungorum,
> where the fungal Romanoa is marked as being a later
> homonym and illegitimate (for some reason, IF has not
> marked the combination Romanoa terricola as
> "unavailable for use" and copied it into Species fungorum).
> It cannot be all that hard to make a list of such cases
> (names that cannot be used for a taxon) and eliminate
> them from each upload to the Catalogue of Life. This would
> still leave the cases that are more difficult to detect, but it
> would show that the Catalogue of Life is at least trying.
> The way it is now, it just disseminates a lot of nonsense,
> apparently completely uncaring.
>
> Paul
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tony Rees" <tonyrees49 at gmail.com>
> To: "John Grehan" <calabar.john at gmail.com>
> Cc: "taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, August 25, 2016 9:26 AM
> Subject: Re: [Taxacom] taxonomic names databases
>
>
>> Update RE John's request...
>>
>> On 22 August 2016 John Grehan wrote:
>>
>> ----------------
>> one particularly
>> problematic example was a genus name Achladaeus that was inserted for a
>> series of species under another well established name (Aenetus), but
>> Achladaeus was already known to be a nomen nudum and it was recorded as
>> such on the original files of the NHM. When I contacted NHM I was told
>> that
>> there were no resources for making the correction at the time (a few years
>> back), but they have now made that correction but the genus is still
>> presented as valid in IRMNG. However, that could be something for me to
>> rectify.
>> -----------------
>>
>> Well, John sent me a list of the affected taxa and I have made the
>> relevant
>> changes in IRMNG on his behalf (not something I plan to do all the time,
>> but worth doing as an exercise). There were quite a few species affected,
>> new names to enter, etc. etc.
>>
>> If interested, you can see the revised entry for Achladaeus here:
>>  http://www.irmng.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1018983
>>
>> The revised one for Aenetus here:
>>  http://www.irmng.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1280671
>>
>> And the auto-generated list of changes arising from his supplied list
>> here:
>>  http://www.irmng.org/aphia.php?p=sourcedetails&id=193998
>>
>> OK, quite a bit of work to affect the requested changes, but useful (in my
>> mind at least) to demonstrate:
>>
>> (a) the benefit of entering them in this manner into an internally-self
>> organising system i.e. database-driven site (each data item entered only
>> once, used many times elsewhere in the system as required) as opposed to
>> just a manually maintained text file or web page,
>>
>> (b) the potential for data re-use (either manual or automated), since
>> IRMNG
>> data is periodically exported to other systems as well as being visible to
>> human readers via the web, and
>>
>> (c) hopefully some longevity for the data (since it lives on a system
>> which
>> hopefully will be maintained into the future, and not by me). In addition,
>> new data or corrections can potentially be maintained in the future by
>> others with associated "custodian" privileges (i.e. all the load need not
>> fall on just one person).
>>
>> Interesting exercise (although it makes me glad I stick to editing genera
>> in the main - around 10 times fewer!!)
>>
>> Regards - Tony
>>
>> Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
>> https://about.me/TonyRees
>>
>> On 22 August 2016 at 04:50, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks to everyone for all the kind and thoughtful feedback. And also for
>>> the E. fahringeri entry to ZooBank. Looks like there is no obvious answer
>>> for me at this time as to the best choice - at least for my purposes.
>>> uBio
>>> had a good format with respect to seeing what was listed already (but I
>>> was
>>> unable to contact the administrator). ZooBank does not show the full
>>> content for what is listed already so its a bit tricky in that respect
>>> (or
>>> I missed a step) - and it appears to be lacking a huge amount of names
>>> for
>>> my group - I tried a well established genus Endoclita first designated in
>>> 1874 and got nothing.
>>>
>>> And of course there are other layers of complexity such as generic
>>> designations which, in my group, underwent a  reversal with a checklist
>>> in
>>> 2000 downgrading a bunch of genera under one name (and as a checklist
>>> there
>>> was no justification) and then reinstatement (with justification) of
>>> those
>>> names in 2012. IRMNG has a promising layout as I can see full species
>>> lists
>>> and looks attractive from that aspect, although very much out of date due
>>> to its reliance on the out of date NHM database - one particularly
>>> problematic example was a genus name Achladaeus that was inserted for a
>>> series of species under another well established name (Aenetus), but
>>> Achladaeus was already known to be a nomen nudum and it was recorded as
>>> such on the original files of the NHM. When I contacted NHM I was told
>>> that
>>> there were no resources for making the correction at the time (a few
>>> years
>>> back), but they have now made that correction but the genus is still
>>> presented as valid in IRMNG. However, that could be something for me to
>>> rectify. At the time of the original entry of Achladaeus it was
>>> interesting
>>> to see how the name spread like wildfire through all sorts of web sites.
>>> Made for real confusion.
>>>
>>> I will think on this further, but at this time IRMNG seems to have a
>>> layout
>>> or structure that is most easily accessible for me (so emphasis on this
>>> as
>>> a personal perspective with respect to my strengths and weakness)  to
>>> understand what is present or not. Again, no criticism implied above for
>>> any databases as its a truly massive challenge and I am just a taxonomic
>>> hobbyist for a small, obscure group, and without intensive taxonomic
>>> database skills.
>>>
>>> John Grehan
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-- 
Dra. María Virginia Bianchinotti.
Lab. de Micología y Control Biológico. Centro de Recursos Naturales  
Renovables de la Zona Semiárida (CERZOS) - Edificio E-1, CCT BB  
(CONICET) - Camino La Carrindanga, Km 7. B8000FWB - Bahía Blanca.  
ARGENTINA. Tel: 54 (0291) 4861124, Fax: 54 (0291) 4862882.
Lab. de Ficología y Micología. Departamento de Biología, Bioquímica y  
Farmacia. Universidad Nacional del Sur. San Juan 670. 8000 - Bahía  
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