Re: Naming standards

From: jimjim at sky.net (James W. Waddick) on 1997.01.04 at 01:13:09(53) >I know no one likes numbers for names, but as a software engineer I >have to ask.... Is there an international standard for numeric >designations for species? I'm hoping there is a cdrom set out there >somewhere that is just a huge list of: > >74567862347845 1.2.3.4.5.6.7 additional > >where the first column is a unique identifier down to the cultivar/ >subspecies level and the second is the current "official" name (or >at least some cdrom distributors opinion of the "official" name). >There would be a table included indicating that 1 means Plantae (or >whatever is at the top of the tree; my biology education stopped at >high school (and is continuing again on the net :) )), 1.2 means >Plantae Whateverae, etc. The third column would be subspecies/cultivar >name. (The only reason for numbers in the second column rather >than using the Latin directly is space conservation in the table. >(and if you leave the groupings alone but decide you simply must >change a name, you can make the change in the table rather than >throughout)) > >This would be great! I could track of all of my plants in my >database using the unique id, and display/print the information >using whatever the latest name craze happened to be. I'd use the >number on all tags and keep a lookup sheet handy with translations >to the current names for the ids I happen to use. Actually, >I'd probably use the number "dash" another number indicating >the genetic instance so I could tell which were clones. For >the species where there is a list of clones it would be good >to have the clone number built into the unique id. > >All this depends on a central naming database however. Does one >exist? If not, do any of the taxonamists know of an effort to >get one going? Blocks of IDs could be assigned to organizations; >if they run out, more would be assigned. IAS seems like a good >choice for the aroids. IAS could be the keeper of the unique >ids for members of the family Aracae. If a plant was moved out >of Aracae, no problem! Some other group now owns that id. If >two plants are decided to be the same, no problem: the second >and third columns would be the same for both numbers. If a plant >changes names, the second and/or third column would change (but >not the database of an individual grower). Thousands of hybrids >could get unique ids even though the second column is the same >for all of them. Would a 32 bit number be sufficient? (allowing >ids 0 - 4294967295) or would a 64 bit number be needed (allowing >ids 0 - 18446744073709551615)? If the latter were the case, >I think I'd need "local" unique ids to keep me from going crazy >making out the labels, but then again, that's only 20 characters >at the worst - maybe it's not too bad. > >Anyway, the advantages to such a system seem great to >this member - any other ideas for insulating amateurs from the >perils of taxonomical changes? > >If there is not currently a system in place, and there is support >for forming one, let's hash out what would work for people and >I'd be glad to help put some code together to help maintain such >a system. I'd be doing it for myself anyway! :) > >- Todd Ruth >truth@ucsd.edu >truth@qualcomm.com Dear Todd; ? Jim W. +More James L. Murrain Voice: 816 746 1949 James W. Waddick E-MAIL: jimjim@sky.net 8871 NW Brostrom Rd Fax: 816 746 1939 Kansas City MO 64152

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