[Taxacom] progress on globalnames.org

Thu May 14 20:09:21 CDT 2009

Hi Pete,

Well, the idea is not new; our group here has being doing this for 20+ years for Australian marine species with out "CAAB" identifiers which are intended to be stable although names may change through time (e.g. see

http://www.marine.csiro.au/caabsearch/caab_search.caab_report?spcode=28711050

)

We have achieved a de-facto currency for these identifiers throughout our (geographically and habitat) restricted user community, but obviously have no mandate or desire to do it for the world...

Also if you are not careful you end up with needing a synonymy of concept identifiers, plus the ongoing and creeping problems resulting from splitting / merging / redefining concepts as previously alluded to.

Anyway I thought uBio / EoL Union were going to do this with their "reconciliation groups" of names, e.g. see Paddy's post near the bottom of http://forum.eol.org/viewtopic.php?p=2897 - again we don't want rampant duplication (but I agree, we do need something!!)

I am doing something similar with IRMNG too, but only internally at this time and for my own purposes.

Just some more food for thought...

Cheers - Tony

________________________________
From: Peter DeVries [mailto:pete.devries at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, 15 May 2009 10:58 AM
To: Rees, Tony (CMAR, Hobart)
Cc: dremsen at gbif.org; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; trobertson at gbif.org
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] progress on globalnames.org

Hi Tony,

Your concerns are noted and that is one reason that I have set things up on "mobile" domains.

I have needed this sort of thing for a while and have periodically posted about it. It did not seem to be happening, so I did it on my GeoSpecies site using UUID's.

I have thought that it might be better to separate the species concepts to a lighter framework that did not directly include photos etc.

Also my use of UUIDs seemed to put some people off, so I came up with smaller unique identifiers.I can explain those in a later post.

I would be happy to work with others on creating this, but I also needed something that can be made workable in a non-TDWG time frame.

Think of it this way. The taxonconcept.org<http://taxonconcept.org> site will be for trying this idea, seeing what works and what does not, so that in the end we have something that works and persists.

Also I am not the only one in this space that is setting up taxonomic services without a large infrastructure and guaranteed permanence.

I also used to be the network manager for a sizable chunk of the UW campus, so I have infrastructure experience.

I will be visiting EOL next week to do a talk, and I plan on discussing this idea with them. There is also another group that I have
talked with.

You seem supportive of the concept, however, it is not clear at all from messages on this list that something like this is needed or a even a valid idea. There are a number of people for whom the name is the species concept.

Respectfully,

- Pete

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 7:01 PM, <Tony.Rees at csiro.au> wrote:
Dear Pete, all,

What you are proposing is something I have been anticipating to eventuate out of uBio / NameBank / Eol / GBIF / Cat of Life or some combination of the above, so (with respect) I think it is not a decision that can be taken unilaterally by one worker at one agency with unstated permanence / resourcing / long term support / community buy-in etc. etc. My feeling is that such a key central resource needs a rock solid hosting and ongoing governance structure for the future so should probably be a high priority topic for discussion at e-Biosphere. Nobody doubts that taxon concepts are the way to go (hence all the global and regional "species information" sites - you want to attach the species related info to the taxon concept, not every name) - however there are still residual problems of either lumping or splitting through time, regional or other misidentifications, and differences of opinion regarding circumscription (lumpers, splitters, and taxonomic reallocations of subsidiary taxa).

I for one look forward to this being a hot topic next month in London...

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees
Manager, Divisional Data Centre,
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research,
GPO Box 1538,
Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia
Ph: 0362 325318 (Int: +61 362 325318)
Fax: 0362 325000 (Int: +61 362 325000)
e-mail: Tony.Rees at csiro.au
Manager, OBIS Australia regional node, http://www.obis.org.au/
Biodiversity informatics research activities: http://www.cmar.csiro.au/datacentre/biodiversity.htm
Personal info: http://www.fishbase.org/collaborators/collaboratorsummary.cfm?id=1566

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>] On Behalf Of Peter DeVries
Sent: Friday, 15 May 2009 8:02 AM
To: David Remsen (GBIF)
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>; Tim Robertson
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] progress on globalnames.org<http://globalnames.org>
I think that the effort to organize information about species has been
moving so slowly in part because of it's focus on names. Our goal is to
organize information about species, names are just the handle that we use to
tag a species.

The efforts would go much more quickly if we create identifiers for species
concepts and then point the various names to that identifier.

I did a check via Google Scholar for papers published this year that mention
the *Puma concolor*, and *Felis concolor.*
*
*
Both of these names for the same species are still being used.

It would make sense to mint global URI for that species concept and then tag
all papers, images, observations to that species concept.

As these documents are being processed, more and more information will be
tied to that identifier.

Identifiers for "good" species could be created quickly. New observations
could start to be tagged with that identifier along with whatever name the
recorder would like to use. e.g. Aedes/Ochlerotatus

These concepts could be mapped to the GNI data in the following way

http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/3165624
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/505310
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/10330292
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/6689244
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/3169574
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/10568463
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/12104361
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/1758834
http://www.taxonconcept.org/spcs/v6n7p  *hasNameID*
http://globalnames.org/name_strings/11818218

I have not had much success getting this idea accepted in a number of these
communities.

So I have a proposal. Let my group start making species concept identifiers.
If this concept is adopted, I have succeeded in proving my point. If this
concept fails, then I am wrong. Either way, we should have an answer by the
end of the decade.

Respectfully,

- Pete

P.S. This is not about changing the system of binomial nomenclature, it is
about tying data together so we can start to address the world's problems in
a efficient manner. Binomial nomenclature stays. ;-)
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--
---------------------------------------------------------------
Pete DeVries
Department of Entomology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
445 Russell Laboratories
1630 Linden Drive
Madison, WI 53706
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