Taxonomic names

Scott Chamberlain

2020-09-08

You have probably, or will, run into problems with taxonomic names. For example, you may think you know how a taxonomic name is spelled, but then GBIF will not agree with you. Or, perhaps GBIF will have multiple versions of the taxon, spelled in slightly different ways. Or, the version of the name that they think is the right one does not match what yo think is the right one.

This isn’t really anyone’s fault. It’s a result of there not being one accepted taxonomic source of truth across the globe. There are many different taxonomic databases. GBIF makes their own backbone taxonomy that they use as a source of internal truth for taxonomic names. The accepted names in the backbone taxonomy match those in the database of occurrences - so do try to figure out what backbone taxonomy version of the name you want.

Another source of problems stems from the fact that names are constantly changing. Sometimes epithets change, sometimes generic names, and sometimes higher names like family or tribe. These changes can take a while to work their way in to GBIF’s data.

The following are some examples of confusing name bits. We’ll update these if GBIF’s name’s change. The difference between each pair of names is highlighted in bold.

Load rgbif

library("rgbif")

Helper function

To reduce code duplication, we’ll use a little helper function to make a call to name_backbone() for each input name, then rbind them together:

name_rbind <- function(..., rank = "species") {
  columns <- c('usageKey', 'scientificName', 'canonicalName', 'rank',
    'status', 'confidence', 'matchType', 'synonym')
  df <- lapply(list(...), function(w) {
    rgbif::name_backbone(w, rank = rank)[, columns]
  })
  data.frame(do.call(rbind, df))
}

And another function to get the taxonomic data provider

taxon_provider <- function(x) {
  tt <- name_usage(key = x)$data
  datasets(uuid = tt$constituentKey)$data$title
}

We use taxon_provider() below to get the taxonomy provider in the bulleted list of details for each taxon (even though you don’t see it called, we use it, but the code isn’t shown :)).

Pinus sylvestris vs. P. silvestris

(c1 <- name_rbind("Pinus sylvestris", "Pinus silvestris"))
occ_count(c1$usageKey[[1]])
taxon_provider(c1$usageKey[[1]])
occ_count(c1$usageKey[[2]])
taxon_provider(c1$usageKey[[2]])

Macrozamia platyrachis vs. M. platyrhachis

(c2 <- name_rbind("Macrozamia platyrachis", "Macrozamia platyrhachis"))
occ_count(c2$usageKey[[1]])
taxon_provider(c2$usageKey[[1]])
occ_count(c2$usageKey[[2]])
taxon_provider(c2$usageKey[[2]])

Cycas circinalis vs. C. circinnalis

(c3 <- name_rbind("Cycas circinalis", "Cycas circinnalis"))
occ_count(c3$usageKey[[1]])
taxon_provider(c3$usageKey[[1]])
occ_count(c3$usageKey[[2]])
taxon_provider(c3$usageKey[[2]])

Isolona perrieri vs. I. perrierii

(c4 <- name_rbind("Isolona perrieri", "Isolona perrierii"))
occ_count(c4$usageKey[[1]])
taxon_provider(c4$usageKey[[1]])
occ_count(c4$usageKey[[2]])
taxon_provider(c4$usageKey[[2]])

Wiesneria vs. Wisneria

(c5 <- name_rbind("Wiesneria", "Wisneria", rank = "genus"))
occ_count(c5$usageKey[[1]])
taxon_provider(c5$usageKey[[1]])
occ_count(c5$usageKey[[2]])
taxon_provider(c5$usageKey[[2]])

The take away messages from this vignette