[Taxacom] progress on globalnames.org

[Paul van Rijckevorsel]

From: "Geoff Read" <gread at actrix.gen.nz>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 10:01 AM
> My point was that both these differences are trivial, they are not real
> "different scientific names", and thus poor examples for your plan. The
> link is the epithet in both, derived from the basionym, and I betcha the
> biologists that work on them happily talk about their 'triseriatus'
> experiments and 'concolor' distribution data. Shades of the LITU.  Search
> software should be able to pull together the data on them easily.

***
Yes, that is not the issue. On the one hand there are scientific names, and
on the other hand there are taxon concepts. Any database worth anything will
have a 'page' per scientific name, detailing at least the nomenclatural data
(publication, typification, etc). However, as such, these data will of very
limited use to an end-user.

The end-user expects 'taxon pages', and here the trouble starts. It is
simple where there are 'good' taxa, with one or more "homotypic" or
"objective" synonyms. It is not too bad if there are also "heterotypic" or
"subjective" synonyms, when there is consensus about their status.

However, in many cases there is less than universal agreement about the
taxon. Even if there is consensus at any one time, this may not be the case
from a wider historical perspective, and many older taxon concepts will
resurface after a few decades. This means that a database will have to deal
with family Khgtyryuuaceae sensu author A, Khgtyryuuaceae sensu author B,
Khgtyryuuaceae sensu author C, etc. Likely these need separate 'pages'. This 
is even more confusing when it comes to species: a collection from a tree 
today may be made under a different name (different basionym, different 
type) than a collection from that same tree twenty years ago, and in another 
twenty years it may have reverted. When a taxonomist lumps taxa this may 
lose information: the literature on taxa G, H, I, K and L can be found by 
anybody who subscribes to a joint taxon K (comprising G, H, I, K and L), but 
the reverse is not true. The literature on the joint taxon K may resist 
being broken down by those who subscribe to separate taxa G, H, I, K and L 
(even if the end-user is aware of the situation). And yet, this may be of 
great practical importance to the end-user.

And indeed, common names may be of invaluable use in finding information.
And, yes, using common names can lead to huge mistakes.

Just stating the obvious (yet again)
Paul