[Taxacom] How to refer to unplaced taxa

[Stephen Thorpe]

The simplest (and possibly best) way is just to have an ID field for each of the standard taxonomic levels (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species) and use the lowest level field that you can. The slight complication is that species names are binomial, whereas other levels are uninomial, but a good database should have a separate field for each rank, so, for example, with Homo sapiens, Homo should go in the genus field, and sapiens in the species field. Might sound obvious, but the alternative scenario is that Homo sapiens goes in one undiffferentiated ID field, which can cause problems. It is not a good idea to try to distinuish between unidentified species, e.g., Quedius sp. indet., as opposed to undescribed species, e.g. Quedius sp. nov., as the former can include the latter. Best to avoid tag names in databases, except perhaps in a separate field. A mixture of different beetles would simply be entered as Coleoptera (in the Order
 field), as would a single beetle unidentified (unplaced) to even family.
Cheers,
Stephen


________________________________
From: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>
To: "Grove, Simon (DEDTA)" <Simon.Grove at tmag.tas.gov.au>; "taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> 
Sent: Tuesday, 12 March 2013 1:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] How to refer to unplaced taxa

Keep the 'name element' clean - 'Quedius sydneyensis' or 'Quedius' or 'Quedidae' ... or whatever. All the other stuff - cf. this, aff. that, TFIC sp 07, sp.nov., gen.nov. ... or whatever, is best places elsewhere. And if authors are needed, keep them elsewhere. And if there is an appropriate nomenclator, include the ID issued by the nomenclator. Link data at the source and we will build that web of data we all want and can all use.

Paul

________________________________________
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Grove, Simon (DEDTA) [Simon.Grove at tmag.tas.gov.au]
Sent: 11 March 2013 23:54
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] How to refer to unplaced taxa

Here's a somewhat more mundane posting for Taxacom, but one I hope that others will be able to help me with:

I'm often in the position of wanting to add records to our museum collections database of specimens or accessions that haven't been identified to the level of species.  There are lots of different reasons for them not having a species assignation.  Sometimes it's because the species is apparently undescribed, but sometimes it's just that none of us has had the time or ability to determine the specimen(s) to this level of taxonomic resolution, but we have at least determined its family, or perhaps even its genus.  And on other occasions, the sample/accession contains representatives of more than one taxon.  Rather than leaving these specimens undatabased, we would like to have some standard ways of referring to them, pending their assignation to taxa with full species binomials.

I've been toying with various words to apply to these taxa and would appreciate some feedback.


*        If I know the genus but haven't ascertained the species, I'm inclined to database the specimen as, for example, 'Quedius species'.  I would do this whether the reason for not knowing the species was because I hadn't yet tried hard enough or because it was an undescribed species.  However, it the undescribed species had been given a collection-wide code-name (i.e. it was a 'known unknown'), then I would be inclined to use that name instead, e.g. 'Quedius TFIC sp 07'.  I'm inclined to avoid using the terms 'aff.' and 'cf.', - for example 'Quedius sp. aff. sydneyensis', if only because they can be applied rather loosely and I'm not sure that other experts not involved in assigning them can be expected to trust them.


*        If I don't even know the genus but know something about its higher classification, I'm inclined to use a pseudo-binomial that combines this taxonomic resolution with the word 'unplaced' instead of 'species', for example 'Staphylininae unplaced', or 'Coleoptera unplaced'.


*        If the accession seems likely to contain a mix of taxa, I'm inclined to use a pseudo-binomial that couples the name for the lowest common denominator in the taxonomic hierarchy with the word 'undifferentiated', for example 'Coleoptera undifferentiated', or 'Insecta undifferentiated' (and let's not get into a discussion here about whether 'Insecta' is a valid taxon!).

Does this make sense?  Are there any better systems out there? I appreciate that others may use the word 'species' in each of these scenarios, but that ultimately conveys less information, or could confuse non-taxonomists into thinking that a taxon such as 'Coleoptera' is of the same (specific) rank as, say, Quedius.  On the other hand, even the word 'species' is ambiguous because it could refer to either one or many species, since its plural form is the same as its singular form.  In that case, maybe always using the abbreviations 'sp.' and 'spp.' would be preferable to reduce ambiguity?  And then there's the issue that using words such as 'unplaced' and 'undifferentiated' in binomials really only makes sense to English-speakers, whereas scientific names are meant to be universal.

Any comments?

Simon

Dr Simon Grove
Senior Curator, Invertebrate Zoology
Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery
GPO Box 1164, Hobart 7001 / 5 Winkleigh Place , Rosny 7018
Tasmania
Australia

Phone 61 3 6211 4124
Personal mobile (not paid by TMAG) 0498 318710

http://www.tmag.tas.gov.au/visitor_information/about_us/locations/collections_and_research_facility_rosny



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