Taxa with Author names for several ranks

[RebekkaML]

At the Herbarium, the folders give the author names for all ranks below Genus, not just the author name of the lowest rank.

Example: Hieracium lycopifolium Froel. var. linaaense Wiinst

There can also be more author names, e.g one for species, one for the subspecies and one for the variety within that subspecies. When entering a new taxon into the DigiApp, we can only give 1 author name, author names in the middle of the taxon are not recognized as such, we can only enter the author name of the lowest rank.

How important are the author names of the higher levels? We need to talk to the Herbarium collection managers and find out more about this. Are the Homonyms so bad that they extend below the species level and we need to include also the higher taxon author names?

This is also a problem when creating a new subspecies for a taxon that already exists in Specify (but multiple times, with different authors). we need a way to attach the subspecies to the correct version of the parent taxon.

Talked about this at the data meeting 16.05.2024. Pip will talk to the Botany collections managers about this.

[RebekkaML]

Summary for the Botany Collections managers by @PipBrewer:

In the DigiApp, we can only see the author of the lowest taxonomic level. However, if there are multiple combinations of the same taxon names e.g. if species A has 2 homonyms (author 1 and author 3) and subspecies B also has 2 homonyms (author 2 and author 4), there could be confusion.

Example 1 folder: Species A, Author1 subspecies B, Author 2 DigiApp: Species A subspecies B, Author 2

Example 2 folder: Species A, Author 3 subspecies B, Author 4 DigiApp: Species A subspecies B, Author 4

Example 3 folder: Species A, Author 3 subspecies B, Author 2 DigiApp: Species A subspecies B, Author 2

The above examples show three different taxa. Examples 1 and 3 could easily be confused if only the final author is known.

Questions for botanists Question 1: Is the issue with homonyms so prevalent that multiple honomyms and multiple ranks for the same taxon name is possible? Question 2: Are all of these combinations likely to be in GBIF? If so, we would be able to see in the DigiApp that there are multiple combinations of Species A and subspecies B for example (as there would be 2 options in the dropdown list, both with the same subspecies author). Programming the app to show authors of ranks above the lowest one is likely to be resource intensive and so we are looking to see if there is a simplest solution first.

[RebekkaML]

Mail by Jens in answer to this issue (30.05.2024): Regarding the second thing, of potential species homonyms in combination with subspecies taxon levels. There are two possibilities: 1) Either you will have encountered a species folder just prior to a subspecies folder, in which case you can comfortably assign all the subspecies-folder to the same species, according to the five cases above. It should be extremely rare that you encounter a species folder with one author, and the subspecies folders in which there are different species authors. 2) If you encounter subspecies folders and no prior species folder has “set” the author, you can leave the species author blank (ignoring the species author on the folder). In fact we are doing this already on the genera level (I don’t know that we are registering genus authors in the Specify taxon tree).

[RebekkaML]

Discussed this further at the DaSSCo Herbarium Digitization Catch-up (30.05.2024).

It should be rare that the homonyms are so prevalent that they extend even to a subspecies level, but especially with the older taxa names it might occur. But for now it is enough if we only add the author of the lowest taxonomic level, as that is what we can do within the DigiApp. If there is only 1 version of the species name in Specify, the subspecies will correctly be connected to that one. If there are several versions of the species in Specify (with different author names), Specify will give a notification about this during import. In that case, we have to pick one (or, if that is possible during import, create a new, third version of the species without author name?), flag it for checking and the collection managers have to decide if it is correct or not.

[RebekkaML]

the issue will be closed for now, but we will keep monitoring this and see how much problems this causes when actually importing these taxa. If this turns out to be a huge issue, we will have to find a different solution for it.