World Plants/Ferns: Incorrect interpretation of ranks (genera Bolophyta & Picrophyta as phyla)

[yroskov]

From: Michael Hassler Sent: Friday, April 16, 2021 9:03

Thanks. If you go to https://www.catalogueoflife.org/data/search?facet=rank&facet=issue&facet=status&facet=nomStatus&facet=nameType&facet=field&limit=50&offset=0&sortBy=taxonomic

there are a few grave errors, like synonyms of plant genera occurring as „phylum“ (!). For example look for „Bolophyta Nutt.“. I hope those are not my fault.

At least one, „Picrophyta F. Muell.“, comes from one of my datasets and occurs there as regular genus synonym. Obviously your system registers every name which ends in „-phyta“ as Phylum…

This is a major bug.

Michael

For attention of @gdower & @mdoering

[yroskov]

I do not see a rank in verbatim data:

[yroskov]

(a) I have tried to use Search for names with portion "phyta" in the Workbench with setting Partial, but got zero names delivered:

(b) Attempt to use wild card as *phyta aor %phyta also failed to get names.

Is it expected software behavior for (a) & (b)?

[mdoering]

Yes, that is expected behavior. Partial is a prefix search, @thomasstjerne we should change the CLB UI labels like we did for the portal already.

[mdoering]

The bad rank might indeed be an interpretation by the name parser based on the name suffix.

The root of all is the missing rank for synonyms in the WP archive - we flagged this before and I thought it had been solved by using the rank of the accepted name also for synonyms unless a different rank is clearly mentioned (I recall cases of subgenera or tribes).

Maybe we should turn off deriving ranks from names and instead (or additionally) add a new task to check unranked names of type scientific. These should not exist in most cases. Only for placeholders, OTUs or rare cases when its really unknown.

[mdoering]

At least these names should have an "interpreted rank" issue flag