[tcs-lc] nameObjects, spellings, vernaculars, etc

[B.J.Tindall]

Two comments from a Bacteriological Code point of view:

At 13:22 4.5.2005 +0200, Gregor Hagedorn wrote:
>I think others need to chime in here. A few additions/comments from me:
>
>> Can you offer your own personal definition of a "NameObject" as you see it?
>
>A name under a regulation such as ICBN, ICZN, etc., but in the future also 
>perhaps other codes of nomenclature (perhaps BAYER/EPPO codes for pathogenic 
>species?). I think I agree with an earlier post on this list.
>
>

Best case of pathogens are the 2,000-2,500 serovars within the subspecies
Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica - these are not covered by a formal
code, but by accepted nomenclatural lists - the names are widely used in
medical circles. Same applies to pathogenic E.coli strains. Pathovars of
certain Xanthomonas strains may be more problematic because the "pathovar"
does always run parallel to species names.

>I have no issue of delegating this to another standard, but I think the
effort 
>to support this in TCS is very little. To me its worth to include in 1.0.
All 
>depends on what others do. However, I believe the GBIF situation is such
that 
>GBIF exactly wants to do the connections, not wait until first the
nomenclators 
>and concept bases are finished, and finally GenBank uses them as a standard.

What worries me A LOT (and I have dicussed this with Jim Edawards and Per
de Place Bjorn in GBIF and they have understood my point) is that names (in
bacteriology) may well be sucked in via GBIF and the passed on to
GenBank/NCBI. Given our system of complete and comprehensive lists of
registered/indexed names were are trying desparately NOT to put into
circulation names which were published in 1900 and have no significance in
modern prokaryote systematics. NCBI is currently using a taxonomy which
very closely follows those lists and we are grateful that this is the case
(even if not 100% perfect). In contrast to objectives in zoology and
botany, which may be to list misspelt names etc. the object in bacteriology
should be to put up complete and "properly" spelt names, with the intent of
serving as a central reference point, so that misspelt names can be either
corrected on labels/catalogues or in database where they may still be
changed - can't do much about printed errors, other than indicate the
proper spelling. This type of work has already been carried out in some of
the Major bacterial culture collections. Of course, we already have the
lists of names etc..

Sorry for interupting

Brian

>
>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
>
>_______________________________________________
>Tcs-lc mailing list
>Tcs-lc at ecoinformatics.org
>http://mercury.nceas.ucsb.edu/ecoinformatics/mailman/listinfo/tcs-lc
>
********************************************************************
* Dr.B.J.Tindall      E-MAIL bti at dsmz.de                           *
* Vice Chairman of the ICSP Judicial Commission                    *
* DSMZ-Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH *
* Mascheroder Weg 1b, D-38124 Braunschweig, Germany                *
* Tel.: ++ 531 2616 0 (general)                                    *
* Tel.: ++ 531 2616 224 (direct)                                   *
* Fax:  ++ 531 2616 418                                            *
*                                                                  *
* Homepage: http://www.dsmz.de/index.html                          *
* E-MAIL: contact at dsmz.de (general enquiries)                      *
*         sales at dsmz.de (sales)                                    *
********************************************************************