[tcs-lc] Poa acroleuca var. ryukyuensis H.Koba & T.Tateoka

[Gregor Hagedorn]

> >What would the TCS schema look like in order to pass the 
> >following IPNI record:
> > Poa acroleuca var. ryukyuensis H.Koba & T.Tateoka
> >Where the parent of the variety is Poa acroleuca Steud.
> >and the parent of the species is Poa L.

Jessie wrote:
> the simplest would be to have taxonconcept for the variety and include
> references to the other realted concepts which we assume can be resolved, if not
> these would need to be included. I have only filled inthe name simple and
> AccordingTo simple but hte detailed elements could be filled out.
> 
> <TaxonConcepts>
>   <TaxonConcept id="co1" type="original">
>    <Name type="scientific">
>     <NameSimple>Poa acroleuca var. ryukyuensis H.Koba & T.Tateoka</NameSimple>
>    </Name>
>    <AccordingTo>
>     <AccordingToSimple>H.Koba & T.Tateoka</AccordingToSimple>
>    </AccordingTo>
>    <Kingdom>Plant</Kingdom>
>    <Rank>variety</Rank>
>    <Relationships>
>     <Relationship type="is child of">
>      <ToTaxonConcept ref="co2"/>
>     </Relationship>
>    </Relationships>
>   </TaxonConcept>
> <TaxonConcept id="co2" type="original">
>    <Name type="scientific">
>     <NameSimple>Poa acroleuca Steud.</NameSimple>
>    </Name>
>    <AccordingTo>
>     <AccordingToSimple>Steud.</AccordingToSimple>
>    </AccordingTo>
>    <Kingdom>Plant</Kingdom>
>    <Rank>variety</Rank>
>    <Relationships>
>     <Relationship type="is child of">
>      <ToTaxonConcept ref="co3"/>
>     </Relationship>
>    </Relationships>
>   </TaxonConcept>
>   <TaxonConcept id="co3" type="original">
>    <Name type="scientific">
>     <NameSimple>Poa L.</NameSimple>
>    </Name>
>    <AccordingTo>
>     <AccordingToSimple>Linnaeus</AccordingToSimple>
>    </AccordingTo>
>    <Kingdom>Plant</Kingdom>
>    <Rank>variety</Rank>
>    <Relationships>
>     <Relationship type="has child ">
>      <ToTaxonConcept ref="co2"/>
>     </Relationship>
>    </Relationships>
>      </TaxonConcept>

Gregor:

In my mind there is a difference between a nomenclatural relationship and a 
taxonomic one. I believe this is how biology operates, please some biologist 
correct me if I am wrong! Let us assume that "Poa acroleuca var. ryukyuensis 
H.Koba & T.Tateoka" was a really bad idea (I apologize to Koba & Tateoka, this 
is purely hypothetical) and since the original publication it has been detected 
that is really should be a species and placed in the genus Festuca. So now we 
have:

Accepted name: Festuca ryukyuensis (H.Koba & T.Tateoka) Someone else
 synonymous with: "Poa acroleuca var. ryukyuensis H.Koba & T.Tateoka" 

Assuming we have data on ecological information about endophytic fungi living 
in the grass and I want to study the distribution of these fungi in grass 
genera. I have been doing very similar stuff, albeit on Caryphyllaceae myself, 
so I think that is a realistic example.

If I have data that identified a grass as "Poa acroleuca var. ryukyuensis" I 
would like to have a hierarchy, that allows me to infer that I need to 
aggregate the information under the genus Festuca.

If the nomenclatural relations are clearly separated from a current 
phylogenetic viewpoint, this is easy. If there is a general parent/child 
relationship, I ask myself how do I tell the difference.

I am repeating myself here, but I believe the problem of TCS is that the 
semantics of the relationship depends on which concept type is on either side 
of a relationship. I do not see how to do it differently. In the example, it 
even seems to depend in very complex ways on synonymization. Note that Poa is 
considered parent of Poa acroleuca which is considered parent of var. 
ryukyuensis. Poa acroleuca still is taxonomic child of Poa (so aggregate data 
there), but since var. ryukyuensis is a syn of Festuca ryukyuensis, that parent 
relationship needs to be suppressed in the analysis. To me this is a bit of a 
nightmare.

Sorry that any attempt for real examples gets so complicated...

Gregor----------------------------------------------------------
Gregor Hagedorn (G.Hagedorn at bba.de)
Institute for Plant Virology, Microbiology, and Biosafety
Federal Research Center for Agriculture and Forestry (BBA)
Königin-Luise-Str. 19           Tel: +49-30-8304-2220
14195 Berlin, Germany           Fax: +49-30-8304-2203