[Taxacom] the hurdle for all biodiv informatics initiatives

[Stephen Thorpe]

So how are your automated machines going to handle name instances of homonyms cited without associated author/year, where only the broad context disambiguates them???
"I found a Solenopsis crawling up the stem of a Solenopsis" (imaginary example)

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Tony.Rees at csiro.au [Tony.Rees at csiro.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 24 February 2010 11:42 a.m.
To: jim.croft at gmail.com; deepreef at bishopmuseum.org
Cc: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] the hurdle for all biodiv informatics initiatives

Jim Croft wrote:

> This example is only a problem if you consider (Evarthrus) and the
> various contractions of genus, author and date to be part of the name
> (which IMO they aren't).
>
> Removing these attributes (name metadata?) from what appears to be a
> name string, there appears to be, on the surface, only one
> Cyclotrachelus sodalis (as a name, as opposed to a named taxon
> concept) which could be linked to a canonical nomenclator entry for
> that name containing links to everything you could ever care to know
> about that name (type specimen metadata, type image(s), protologue
> bibliography metadata, protologue image, protologue transcription,
> etc.)

Ah, but if you remove these attributes, especially at genus level, now you cannot distinguish between the following, as per my recent post regarding Decapoda real world homonymy instances:

Duncania Portell & Collins, 2004 (Decapoda: Leucosiidae), listed as valid in De Grave et al., 2009, cf. Duncania Koninck, 1872 (Cnidaria), also Duncania Pourtalès, 1874 (Cnidaria), and Duncania Bayle, 1879 (Mollusca) - at least one of which is probably valid

... not to mention Duncania H.G.L. Reichenbach, 1828 which is a genus in Magnoliophyta, currently considered a syn. of Asaphes A. P. de Candolle 1825, (which itself has the jun. homonym Asaphes K.P.J. Sprengel, 1827 in Botany, as well as Asaphes Walker, 1834, Asaphes Kirby, 1837 and Asaphes Turner, 1945 in Zoology...)

As I have hinted before and we encounter again above, this is a significantly non-trivial problem at genus level, even if minor at species level.

Cheers - Tony

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