[Taxacom] taxonomic names databases

Sat Aug 27 07:59:53 CDT 2016

A DOWNLOADABLE list of accepted names would be superb (synonyms and their accepted name would a lovely addition). Perhaps a "Cc-by" with date for attribution. That would help those of us trying to build websites for information about the biodiversity of a region.  Yes, I realize, the derivative product will not then be automatically updated - but the derivative product (in my case a web site of specimens and observations) would provide more and more information going forwards and people in the region who like a particular group of organisms could be encouraged to check for changes that need to be made.  As it is, a web site such as that for spiders (animals for which I do not personally care) is a huge frustration. Thank you for it - but please, a little more.  I mention spiders but it applies to all curated nomenclatural databases.  For my purposes, the fact that it is curated means I can trust it - and send users to it for primary literature.

Mary

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Roderic Page
Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2016 12:20 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] taxonomic names databases

Hi Paul,

The taxonomic names in GBIF come from checklists such as Catalogue of Life, etc., not the specimen labels (a misconception I also had). When a collection uploads its data GBIF attempts to match the names on the labels to the names in the checklist, with varying degree of success.

If the checklists are incomplete or out of date, then GBIF struggles to match the names (leaving aside the issue of whether the names on the labels are OK). Given that GBIF has only old copies of IPNI and IF, doesn’t have ZooBank or ION (the source for BioNames) it struggles to match newer taxa (the Catalogue of Life is out of date, and sometimes horribly so).

We’d be doing a lot better if people and organisations with good quality lists of names would make them freely available. Nomenclators are the best source of names, but amongst the worst offenders in terms of being open. Hence, GBIF is messy.

Regards,

Rod

On 27 Aug 2016, at 07:45, Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org<mailto:P.Kirk at kew.org>> wrote:

I agree with Rod. To quote from a famous mycologist, from the 5x3 index card era, 'Lists of names without specimens are not much more than waste paper'. The aforementioned IF (thanks for the complement Stephen) still has some background noise of naked names, like the ones in the quote above, some of which were derived from the 5x3 card era - they are slowly hidden pending the complete digitization of the past where their source might be discovered. One of the 'problems' with GBIF is that it takes names from the equivalent of the 5x3 index cards - the labels on specimens in museums, herbaria, fungaria and some living 'microbial' collections. They are 'unpublished' names but are now made public ... I did see the list of names of fungi under the 'Issues' heading on the GBIF web site. Now where did I put that eighth day this week :-)

Paul
________________________________
From: Roderic Page <Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk<mailto:Roderic.Page at glasgow.ac.uk>>
Sent: 27 August 2016 07:13
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Cc: Paul Kirk; Tony Rees
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] taxonomic names databases

Hi Tony,

I'd argue that focus sing on getting. A list of names alone is not enough, I'd spin the problem around and say we should get the taxonomic literature, because that contains the names linked to evidence. We're awash in unsupported lists of names, which we endlessly recycle up the food chain until the end up in places like GBIF and nobody has a clue where they came from or whether they are actual names.

I think we're still proceeding as if the literature was physical and we need to create 5x3 index cards of names. We can do a lot better than that.

Regards,

Rod

Rod Page wrote:

<snip>
With a "bit" of work we could move towards having full citations and page links for all eukaryote taxonomic names...
</snip>

Indeed ... or even just a list of all the names...

Cheers - Tony

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On 27 August 2016 at 02:41, Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org<mailto:P.Kirk at kew.org>> wrote:
You sure did ...

IF provides OCR'd text - via BHL links; some article level data also there thanks to your work.

Linking names to articles is low priority, for my time, especially for the old stuff ... and I'm sure 'articles' will 'soon' be a thing of the past.

Indeed we could have all those links - one of the challenges is to do it once and use it many times, rather than lots of people doing the same thing lots of times.

Paul

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