Overcoming Provisional Nomenclature in WoRMS: Short-term Strategies for the Taxonomic Obstruction
The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) has recently published a paper titled "Tackling temporary names in WoRMS: interim solutions for the taxonomic impediment." This paper provides practical recommendations and standardized guidelines for entering temporary (informal) names in taxonomic databases, with a focus on WoRMS.
These guidelines were developed over more than two years through extensive collaboration among WoRMS Steering Committee members, data teams, and external experts. The collaboration was a part of a UN Ocean Decade commitment to address the increasing use of temporary names in taxonomy.
Key aspects of the recommended guidelines include:
- Clear documentation and classification of different types of temporary names and their commonly used terminologies to ensure consistent understanding.
- Criteria to decide which temporary names qualify for entry into the database, providing taxonomic editors with clarity on when to record these names versus excluding them.
- Standardized format and procedures for entering temporary names to maintain nomenclatural consistency and interoperability across taxonomic databases.
Temporary names are treated carefully to avoid confusion, ensuring that accepted, unaccepted, unavailable, and temporary names are properly distinguished and recorded following the outlined rules from previous works such as Horton et al. (2017).
The guidelines aim to improve the management of the "taxonomic impediment," where incomplete or provisional names now play a significant role in biodiversity data but have historically been difficult to handle consistently in authoritative registers.
The paper focuses on Type 2 temporary names, which are those that have been confirmed as new to science in a scientific publication but lack a formal description and Linnean binominal name according to the relevant nomenclatural code. Type 2 temporary names are expected to be formally taxonomically described, allowing their name relationships to be tracked through synonymy in WoRMS.
WoRMS does not expect editors to capture all existing temporary or informal names; only Type 2 temporary names will be considered for entry. The broad adoption of these guidelines and recommendations concerning temporary names supports the robust integration of informal and formal taxonomies into global taxonomic databases.
The paper was originally published on WoRMS' website and serves as an interim solution to the taxonomic impediment, providing a step towards standardizing the entry of temporary names in taxonomic databases, not just in WoRMS but in databases in general.
[1] Horton, W.J., et al. (2017). The taxonomic impediment and the future of biodiversity science. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 32(12), 833-844. [2] WoRMS (2021). ABC WoRMS: World Register of Marine Species endorsed as an official UN Ocean Decade action. Retrieved from https://www.marinespecies.org/news/article/abc-worms-world-register-of-marine-species-endorsed-as-an-official-un-ocean-decade-action/
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