User talk:AndrewT/Name Section1

From Wikispecies

I believe I've mostly followed the precedents set in Wikispecies. A lot of the data here is hypothetical stuff I made up, but it's mostly internally coherent. Some of it I've copied from other articles.

Not all of this information will be available. This is a maximal Name section. Some of it won't ever apply to a particular species (most species won't have any of the types listed below beyond the holotype)

Contents 1 General Structure 2 The actual name 3 Authorship 4 Dates in Plant Authors 5 Basionym/Original Combination 6 Type Locality 7 Specialized Fields 8 Type Holding Institutions 9 Types of Types 10 Citing Types 11 Diagnosis/Original Description 12 Synonyms

[edit] General Structure

From what I've seen, Synonyms is the only subsection under Name. On Lecidea fuscoatra, there is a subsection for Basionym. Adding subsections would be a radical change to the current structure, but would be better done sooner than later if needed (perhaps a bot could help implement). I would suggest having a Types/Type(s)/Type/? subsection if any were added.

[edit] The actual name

Name portion follows the precedent from the templates. Animals don't include infraspecific rank. Plants do, as "var.", or "subsp." (not "ssp." but not fully standardized), rank not italicized

[edit] Authorship

Incredibly complex example. Only optional element is "Timm ex." (pre-ex author). Plant name authors standardized following B&P (=IPNI), although I object to the spaceless practice (R.Br.)

[edit] Dates in Plant Authors

I'm not entirely comfortable with this. Botanical authors are not cited with dates. It is widely used on plants articles, and does present useful data in a good way. If the name line is intended to show the name exactly as it would appear in scientific literature, including the date is not really acceptable. I'm inclined to leave it as is. If it were changed, it could be presented on a separate line. Basionyms has their own date, so that's potentially two separate lines. Shorthand format used in the ICBN (and elsewhere) when disicussing priority uses parentheses, e.g. L. (1758). More typical format is a telegraphic citation of the reference (e.g. "Smith, Am. J. Bot. 46:217 1933"), which is kind of unwieldy. Date could be given implicitly in the References if the appropriate papers were cited; poor option since papers may not be cited.

[edit] Basionym/Original Combination

Set out from synonyms. It appears most editors who are including basionym (noted as such) are doing so, but method varies. Otherwise, cited with the general name format. Basionym is a botanical term, not zoological. ITIS has "original name/combination". ICZN uses long circumlocutions of the concept. I don't think there's a zoological standard.

[edit] Type Locality

1. . Note two type localities (the first one for the holotype, although not specified as such). Neo/lectotypes will have different localities from the holotype. If information for holotype locality and neo/lectotype locality is available, it would be good to provide.
2. . Bayern. 10 km N von München. Locality cited exactly as is appears (in hypothetical source). Don't translate, expand abbreviations, or alter it any way. Ideally, this would be exactly what appears on the label of the type specimen. In practice, we can't go to where the holotype was housed to check. Sources may already have translated the type locality from it's original language, but if you can't check the type specimen, go with what the source has. Type localities will often be minimal for older taxa (e.g., "Java" in Panthera tigris)
3. . . 23.V.1830 I'm not sure about animals, but the collection date is often given when citing plant type specimens. I've put it in the Type Locality section (haven't found any other articles with this data beyond the Stapelianthus species I've worked on). Here, I've separated it from the rest of the type locality with a ". ", and used the date format found in the Taxon Authorities articles.
4. ; type locality of neotype: Copied from Cnemaspis scalpensis. This might be the only article that give a type locality based on a neo/lectotype. Is ; type locality of neotype: the best way to mark the division between holotype and neo/lectotype locality?
5. Agarapatana, Hatton, Sri Lanka, (N 06° 50’ 58.1” E 080° 40’ 35.0”, elevation 1524m) copied from Cnemaspis scalpenis. Looks good, was copied exactly from the cited source.
6. "Type Locality" is a formal term in the ICZN, but not ICBN. Not a big deal, but online sources may be unlikely to have the "type locality" information for plants (looks like MSW gives type localities instead of lectotypes? or have mammalogists really not gotten around to lectotypifing Linnean names?)

[edit] Specialized Fields

Substratum, Host, Horizon I don't know much about this stuff, seen it used here a little. There may be other forms of data given for groups of organisms I know little about. Host is probably often given in taxonomic papers on parasites. Substratum shows up mostly as "Host-Substratum/Locality". Horizon is palentological. Should these occupy their own lines, or be wrapped into "Type Locality"?

[edit] Type Holding Institutions

1. My impression of wikispecies is that most articles citing types don't create any sort of link to the holding institution. Many of those that do have a link do it through Holotype, I've seen some discussion of this method, so I guess it's the currently standard. Some (e.g. Lonchophylla orcesi with EPN) do it through the institutional acronym. I don't necessarily object to creating pages for the institutions, but I do think it could end up a time sink that dilutes Wikispecies primary mission. I do not like the Holotype page under it's current title. I think Neotype, Lectotype and Holotype should be redirects to Type Holding Institutions. However, with thousands of type holding institions, this could become a very large page.

[edit] Types of Types

1. Multiple types Not many articles cite multiple types. Elseya uberima does, with the Holotype preceding the Lectotype on the same line. As far as I can tell, there isn't much of a precedent for presenting multiple types on Wikispecies. I'm not sure that there are any pages that cite more than two kinds of types. Here, I've chosen to give each seperate the different types with an empty line. My example is implausible: no species should have both a Holotype and Syntypes, and it is highly unlikely that both a Neotype and a Lectotype would have been designated. However, NeoHolo, LectoSyn, LectoHolo are certainly plausible. For LectoSyn situations, the syntypes are usually not going to be cited. You'll just see a lectotype. The order I've chosen for the different kinds of types (Neotype:Lectotype:Hapanto/Holotype:Syntype) presents "the current type" at the top of the list, for any combination of types actually applicable to the species (should I write an brief explanation of what these prefixes to "type" mean on User:AndrewT/Type Tutorial)? Reverse order (Syn:Holo/Hapanto:Lecto:Neo) might also work. Perhaps alphabetical (Holo:Lecto:Neo:Syn)-that's certainly straightforward. Other ways to separate these besides a blank line?
2. Epitype, isotypes, allotypes These are subsidary types. Citing them isn't terribly important. These should all be associated with one of the primary kinds of types. In this case, I've presented them on the same line Isotype on the same line as Lectotype, and Epitype with Neotype. Isotype and Epitype must be associated with one of the primary types (Neo,Lecto,Holo,Syn). I'm not sure who best to indicate that association. Formatting? Explicit text reference ("(epitype for holotype EPN 4138?) Note that epitypes only apply to plants, allotypes only apply to animals.
3. Paratype, Paralectotype, Isosyntype. Not really worth entering these, but people may come across them and want to add them. I've shown where they should go. Para is loosely tied to holo and syn, paralecto loosely tied to lecto and syn; loosely tied, so on a separate line. Isosyn is closely tied to syn, so on the same line.

[edit] Citing Types

Citing types: Hampe 1249 (EPN C45312-1, destroyed in fire) by subsequent designation (M.R. Jones, 1981) Although it might look like it, I'm not advocating using a different format for citing the actual type specimen for each kind of type. I'm presenting a general format that could be used with various data elements missing. The data elements are

1. citation by collector (with or without collector number, "Hampe 1249" or "Hampe s.n.";
2. citation by museum (with or without accession number), "EPN" or "(EPN C45312-1)"; #reason why type was superceded (destroyed in fire), (missing)
3. citation of subsequent type designation , "by subsequent designation (M.R. Jones, 1981).

How to display these: I've done Collector COLL# (COLLECTION Acc#, superceded because) type designated by (Author, year). I'd leave of the parentheses around (COLLECTION Acc#]] if this is the only info given.

[edit] Diagnosis/Original Description

I think it's quite unlikely that this will be added. This is the description of the taxon. I know Wikispecies frowns on descriptions, but this is a special description from the original publication. It is valuable taxonomically, but is not really appropriate for a biologist in the field. It wouldn't fit on WikiDichotomousKey or Wikipedia. Wikispecies is the best place for it if anywhere. The diagnosis is very unlikely to be in any online database. It may be protected by copyright (I've heard conflicting opinions on whether quoting it in full is fair use), although many publications will be old enough to be out of copyright. For plants, the diagnosis is always in Latin. For animals it can be in any language (more Latin for older taxa, predominantly but by no means exclusively English now). I'm a little worried that adding English diagnoses could be perceived as opening the door to more general descriptions. For plants, the consistent use of Latin should scare off any misguided contributors. But then there's the whole protologue. That could run a few paragraphs

[edit] Synonyms

• Stapelianthus griseus (Timm) Hook., 1840 (illegitimate)

Pretty straightforward. Bulleted list of names, alphabetized. Names follow formatting used for the accepted/valid name. I would not link these authors. Parenthetical citation of the reason why it's a synonym, if info is available. Make no attempt to standardize synonymy reasons, there are some loose guidelines in the Codes for this, but form varies quite a bit in practice.