Display genus along with subgenus, section, etc

It looks like somebody manually added the subgenus and section names as “English common names” for Carex. It’s an okay workaround in some ways, but I don’t think they will show up for people using iNat in other languages, and it’s not really a scalable solution.

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Well, it’s a way to solve this problem, while we wait for the people who are now busy to have time to do it. I’m very thankful to whoever found and implemented this work around.

And thinking about this, since we do have common names for most taxa, why not provide a genus + subgenus or genus + section common name for each of these subgeneric categories?

Before any change on the display is done, there is actually a prerequisite that needs to be established. That is a formal rule about how the name is physically entered into the database.

Right now taxa in these kind of ranks are a giant mess of names, often made worse by the auto import from CoL and EoL interpreting the taxonomic level as genus for the source.

To use just one example, the beetle genus Aphodius

It has a large number of subgenera.

In some the species are entered under the name ‘Aphodius’
In some, they are entered under the name of the subgenus Subgenus Caligodorus
In some, they are a mix of both Subgenus Agrilinus

And then you get cases where the same species is listed under both names.

Before any attempt to display this is made (which is a good idea), this has to be settled, and then a huge effort to standardize the existing entries towards which ever format is chosen.

Otherwise I fear trying to display this will just be a giant jumble of inconsistencies.

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There are people out here who would be interested in helping with that. :-)

I think it’s worth expanding on the relationship between current iNaturalist practice and the botanical code a little. ICNafp 21.1.: “The name of a subdivision of a genus is a combination of a generic name and a subdivisional epithet. A connecting term (subgenus, sectio, series, etc.) is used to denote the rank.”

The taxon Euphorbia sect. Anisophyllum is displayed, depending on context, as “Section Anisophyllum” or “Anisophyllum”. The code is unambiguous: neither “Anisophyllum” nor “Section Anisophyllum” is the name of a subdivision of a genus. This is analogous to having the species Aristida purpurea entered in the database as “purpurea”. Annoying though the rules may be, “purpurea” simply is not the name of a species and “Anisophyllum” is not the name of a section.

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By the way, dealing with nomenclatural and taxonomic data in the context of large biodiversity-related data sets is part of my day job at this point, too. I’ve been working on data structures and processes to try to do it well. I have a document on the topic I’d be happy to share, along with any other assistance within my abilities.

I know I have a history of being irritable on this topic, but this is largely coming from a desire to be helpful, and a belief that I have the expertise & skills to be helpful, but a feeling that I don’t have the opportunity to be helpful. It’s frustrating.

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I would find this very helpful.

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