[Taxacom] FW: formation of zoological names with Mc, Mac, et

[Dan Lahr]

Francisco,

"Homonymy across biological sciences (Tandonia) is a problem, probably
without solution. In the Codes could be added rules that from now
on it shall not be allowed any more to produce more such homonyms."

I think this is a direct and strong argument why we taxonomists should
be paying more attention to the bioinformatics advances. Global
databases of names at the very least ensure that a homonym, a
mispelling or any other type of nomenclatural glitch never ever
happens again. Of course there are many more profound arguments, but
this one should suffice on its own.

So yes, I'm convinced the recent bioinformatics effort should lead to
a re-evaluation of nomenclatural rules, and this is a multi-faceted
issue.

"Tandonia are slugs, not snails, by the way..."

That's right... or ascomycetes, or euphorbs, but not snails.


Dan


On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 7:43 PM, Francisco
Welter-Schultes<fwelter at gwdg.de> wrote:
> Dan,
>
>> So is the take home
>> message that taxonomists should probably start thinking about
>> modifying current rules to accommodate the problems coming from the
>> unification of all taxonomies?
> They should be aware that they are providing a service for others who
> use the names they provide. And if the requirements for these names
> change, then modifying rules to get the names fitter for real use is
> certainly an option.
>
> Homonymy across biological sciences (Tandonia) is a problem, probably
> without solution. In the Codes could be added rules that from now
> on it shall not be allowed any more to produce more such homonyms.
>
> In the case of spellings of authors, and incongruent uses of
> initials, rules in the ICZN Code could help contributing to a
> reduction of costs provoked by manual fixing of problems arising
> from variant spellings, particularly of authors. A clearly ruled
> spelling of authors in taxa names would certainly be helpful for many
> situations. Rules were established concerning the exact spelling of
> genus and species, and the exact year, so author should also be
> possible.
>
> Tandonia are slugs, not snails, by the way...
>
> Francisco
> University of Goettingen, Germany
> www.animalbase.org
>
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-- 
Daniel Lahr
-------------------------------------------------
PhD candidate
Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
U Massachusetts- Amherst
319 Morrill Science Center, Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003