[eml-dev] taxonRankValue for species names

[James Brunt]

I was taught - admittedly long ago - that, taxonomically speaking, the
'species name' must include the genus and the specific epithet. While
looking at it from a strictly hierarchical node structure the specific
epithet looks and acts like the other nodes. However, taxonomically the
node 'alterniflora' has no taxon rank by itself. I guess I'd prefer to
see the binomial 'species name' concept retained in our metadata if
there is no confounding reason why it shouldn't be so.

The is also a mistake in the normative docs if they are referring to
Acer rubrum as the 'common name' of Red Maple.

My two bits.

James

James W. Brunt
Chief Information Officer
Long Term Ecological Research Network
LTER Network Office
Department of Biology MSC03 2020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
505 277 2535
jbrunt at LTERnet.edu
OpenPGP-Id: 1024D/4E657C39

On 9/3/2012 10:51 AM, Wade Sheldon wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I've been working on an XSL that extracts selected content from an EML
> document to annotate parsed data sets in MATLAB, and I came across some
> inconsistencies in encoding of taxonomicCoverage elements for species
> names from different EML implementers. Specifically, some authors use
> the species binomial, and some do not, i.e.
> 
> with binomial:
> 
> <taxonomicClassification>
>    <taxonRankName>Genus</taxonRankName>
>    <taxonRankValue>Spartina</taxonRankValue>
>    <taxonomicClassification>
>       <taxonRankName>Species</taxonRankName>
>       <taxonRankValue>Spartina alterniflora</taxonRankValue>
>    </taxonomicClassification>
> </taxonomicClassification>
> 
> vs.
> 
> without binomial:
> 
> <taxonomicClassification>
>    <taxonRankName>Genus</taxonRankName>
>    <taxonRankValue>Spartina</taxonRankValue>
>    <taxonomicClassification>
>       <taxonRankName>Species</taxonRankName>
>       <taxonRankValue>alterniflora</taxonRankValue>
>    </taxonomicClassification>
> </taxonomicClassification>
> 
> 
> When I first started producing EML back in 2003 I used the species name
> without genus, but Matt Jones and Dan Higgins suggested I use the
> species binomial instead. We also included that recommendation in the
> LTER EML best practices
> (http://im.lternet.edu/sites/im.lternet.edu/files/emlbestpractices-2.0-FINAL-20110801_0.pdf).
> 
> 
> However, the normative docs for EML 2.1.1
> (http://knb.ecoinformatics.org/software/eml/eml-2.1.1/eml-coverage.html)
> seem to suggest the opposite approach:
> 
> "The name representing the taxonomic rank of the taxon being described.
> The values included may be referenced from an authoritative source such
> as the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS)in the U.S.
> (http://www/itis.usda.gov) and in Canada
> (http://sis.agr.gc.ca/pls/itisca/taxaget). Also, Species2000 is another
> source of taxonomic information, found at (http://www.sp2000.org)
> Example(s):
> Acer would be an example of a genus rank value, and rubrum would be an
> example of a species rank value, together indicating the common name of
> red maple. It is recommended to start with Kingdom and include ranks
> down to the most detailed level possible."
> 
> For now I'm revising the XSL to check for species-only using a contains
> node test on a space character, but handling both cases is a pain
> considering the nesting, so it would be better to standardize on one
> approach.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Wade Sheldon
> GCE-LTER
> 
> 
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