This page is intended as a discussion page about how to treat synonymy in the nub. For information on how Synonymy is treated in ChecklistBank and the GNA format please see this page.

A very good document that compares the treatment and terminology of synonymy in botany and zoology: http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/PROTEM/TAXSIG/taxonomy_synonyms_examples.pdf. The synonym examples in this document have been converted to the GBIF GNA format for evaluation. (See spreadsheet)

Disclaimer: The original author of this page is NOT a taxonomist.

Definitions

Objective synonym: A relationship between 2 names that will not be disputed; it is not disputed that a specimen labeled with one name can also be referred to by another name. This is also known as a nomenclatural synonym or a homotypic synonym , because the names are based on the same types. Objective synonyms may occur when a species is moved from the original genus to a new genus, resulting in a new binomial combination. In some cases, such a move would result in a new combination that matches an existing combination, resulting in a homonym. In this case a new, replacement name is created to replace the junior homonym. Another type of objective synonym are orthographic variants and misspellings of names (including the formatting of included authorship).
Subjective synonym: A relationship between 2 names that is based on opinion; one person might believe that a specimen labeled with one name should be referred to by another name, but another person might dispute that statement This includes heterotypic synonyms (names based on different types), missapplied names or other relations which are not covered by the codes

Proposal

Within any taxonomic subset of the Nub taxonomy synonymy will be derived from

1. One specified taxonomic resource. Unless otherwise noted the taxonomic synonymy will be based on that provided by the currently indexed Catalogue of Life Annual Checklist.

2. Sources of Objective Synonymy. In addition to the one specified taxonomic source, synonymy will also be informed by two additional classes of sources. Nomenclatural synonymy derived from source datasets that group names based on homotypic criteria and lexical synonymy that group orthographic variation derived from Lexical Grouping methods described on this site.

Because the taxonomy used during the identification of the specimen (or the observers opinion) is not known, ultimately the organisation of records results in a name matching algorithm and not a taxonomic matching algorithm. For example; did the person identifying the Gorilla gorrilla identify it as such knowing that the same specimen would be identified as a Gorrilla gorrilla berengi by another person? This information is largely lost before the occurrence data is indexed in the GBIF portal as the taxonomy used during identification is not transferred. This is the situation as of July 2009, and in future the taxonomic opinion should be known.

Alternative

An alternative solution might be to use different taxonomies (including their subjective opinion) to manage different portions of the taxonomy. As one browses through the overall tree, it would say "this section is organised according to the opinions expressed in the ... taxonomy".

Statistics

Based on the current portal backbone taxonomy (July 2009) which uses (all types) of synynomy from the 2007 Annual Checklist of the Catalogue of Life, there are:

... "concepts" that have occurrences identified to a non accepted name (objective)

... show breakdown proving moths and beetles

... "concepts" that have occurrences identified to a non accepted name (subjective)

... show breakdown proving moths and beetles

Links

Synonymy Examples

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