Biodiversity Heritage Library and Global Names: Successes, opportunities and the challenges for the future collaboration

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a major aggregator of biodiversity literature with more than 200,000 volumes. The Global Names Architecture (GNA) strives to develop and provide tools for finding, parsing and verifying scientific names. GNA and BHL have enjoyed 10 years of collaboration in the creation of a scientific names index for BHL. Such an index provides researchers with a means for finding data about more than a million species. Recently, BHL and GNA developed a workflow for the creation of an index that covers more than 50 million pages of BHL, and finds and verifies scientific names in less than a day. The unprecedented speed of the index creation opens an opportunity to dramatically increase its quality and reach. The following challenges can now be addressed. 1. Abbreviated names reconciliation. From 20% to 25% of all scientific names in BHL are abbreviated. It is much harder to reconcile and verify abbreviated names, because their specific epithets are not unique. We plan to reconcile the vast majority of such names via a statistical approach. 2. Linking of biodiversity publication titles with actual pages in BHL. Scientific names are closely connected to publications of original description, taxonomic treatments, and other usages. We plan to build algorithms for finding out how different lexical variants of the same publication reference can be disambiguated and connected to corresponding BHL pages. 3. Using taxonomic intelligence for finding information about species. According to our estimation, on average, there are three scientific names (historical and current) per taxon. Names of species often change over time as a result of misspellings, and homotypic or heterotypic synonymy. We plan to link outdated names with currently accepted names of taxa. This functionality provides all information about a taxon in BHL, no matter what names were used to reference the taxon at the time of publication. 4. Finding information about original descriptions of genera and species. For every species there is a publication with the original description. We want to create an index of species that are described in the publications aggregated by BHL. 5. Detection of species names in spite of "incorrect" capitalization. Previously, or in horticultural sources, specific epithets were often capitalized (e.g., Bulbophyllum Nocturnum), or for patronyms in which the species was named in honor of someone (e.g., Notiospathius Johnlennoni). We plan to detect names with non-standard capitalization of this sort. 6. Removal of false positives. Texts in Latin language, names of people, and geographical entities often create false positives that look like scientific names. Using machine learning techniques will allow us to detect and remove most of these errors from the names index. 7. Detection of the names of biodiversity scientists and geographical entities in texts. Finding names of biologists and geographical places in addition to scientific names would allow us to draw connections between these data and to create metadata demonstrating these links. We plan to add tools and algorithms for indexing person names and geographical names. In this talk I will present plans for a dramatic quality increase in the scientific name-finding algorithms, as well as an introduction of other elements that would enhance usability of BHL for its patrons.

A study on the etymology of the scientific names given to planarians (Platyhelminthes, Tricladida) by Ernest Marcus’ school

Leading zoologist and taxonomist Ernest Marcus (1893-1968) and his school described numerous new invertebrate taxa, including planarians, or triclads (Platyhelminthes). These authors rarely provided the etymology of names for the new taxa. In this paper, the etymology of 149 names of genera and specific epithets of planarians lacking etymology (or honoring people) is investigated. The etymology of most names was retrieved from original descriptive papers and from Eudóxia Maria Froehlich’s recollections, a fellow of Marcus’ school. It was discovered that the names were usually freely derived from words of the language spoken in the country where the species was found. Some names were motivated by an aspect of the biology of the species. Other names honored people or are arbitrary. The etymology of 19 names could not be retrieved and are only suggested. The origin of another 19 names could not be discovered, nor even their meaning. Knowing the etymology makes it easier to memorize a name and it is a way to preserve the historical and emotional aspects of the authors. Through the retrieved etymologies, the personality of Marcus can also be glimpsed.

New names for a few Indian flowering plants

While preparing the checklist of Indian flowering plants, it was noticed that some of the plant names currently accepted are indeed later homonyms. New names are proposed here for such later homonyms. Apart, while transferring the species from Gymnema Robert Brown (1810: 461) to Marsdenia Robert Brown (1810: 460) and from Pauia Deb & Ratna Dutta (1965: 363) to Atropa Linnaeus (1753: 181), the specific epithets are pre-empted in the respective genus and hence new names are proposed here.

Specific epithet – a noun in the genitive case

The current article is included in the larger research “The linguistic structure of binomial botanical denominations– specific epithet”, based on “Conspectus of the Bulgarian vascular flora”, fourth revised and updated edition, Sofia, 2012, and deals with a less common type of specific epithets - nouns in the genitive case. The epithets are organized alphabetically in several groups according to their semantic.

Grammatical gender and corrections of the nomina of the species of Larifuga Loman, 1898 (Opiliones, Triaenonychidae)

The genus nomen Larifuga Loman, 1898 was originally published without stated grammatical gender. No possible indications of gender are provided by the specific epithets, as all of them are nouns in the genitive. This genus nomen has consistently been treated as feminine in the literature. However, as shown here, it is a masculine classical Latin word. Accordingly, several matches are herein made to comply with Latin grammar and the Code. The nomen Larifuga mantoni Lawrence, 1934 was subject to an unjustified emendation by Staręga as mantonae, and the original form is re-established here. This correction raised another issue concerning previous unjustified emendations of some nomina in Opiliones formed from personal names in the genitive case.

Incorrect authorship assignments and repeated specific epithets: five cases of the use of homographs by Roewer in harvestmen (Arachnida, Opiliones)

In the context of making a Catalog of World Opiliones accessible online, five vexing cases of incorrect authorship, dating and presumption of misidentification are herein treated, all in the suborder Laniatores. Pachylicus gracilis comb. nov. is proposed for Cerroa gracilis Roewer, 1928.

A reassessment of Eugenia astringens (Myrtaceae) and its synonyms, including their formal typification

Giovanni Casaretto published Eugenia rotundifolia Casaretto (1842: 40) using material that he collected in Restinga vegetation between Copacabana and Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Berg (1857: 287) treated E. rotundifolia Casaretto as a distinct species, and recognized two varieties. However, the binomial E. rotundifolia (Walker-Arnott 1836: 335) Wight (1841: 17) was previously published for a taxon occurring in Sri Lanka. Therefore, Casaretto’s name is a later superfluous homonym and illegitimate. In a recent article on the typification of plant names published by Casaretto, Delprete et al. (2019) proposed E. casarettoana Delprete (2019: 25) as a substitute name for E. rotundifolia Casaretto. However, Delprete and his collaborators overlooked that the name E. casarettoana O. Berg (1857: 520) was previously published using material collected by Martius near the town of Coari, state of Amazonas, Brazil, and belongs to a distinct species occurring in the Brazilian Amazon. Also, Berg (1857) spelled the specific epithet “casaretteana” without explaining to whom he dedicated the epithet. It is obvious that it was dedicated to Casaretto, as no other botanist or plant collector has a similar last name. Therefore, according to Recommendation 60C of the ICN (Turland et al. 2018), the spelling of this epithet should be corrected to casarettoana, as it has been done for this and other specific epithets dedicated to Casaretto (Delprete 2016).

Prokaryotic names: the bold and the beautiful

ABSTRACT In recent years, names of ∼170 new genera and ∼1020 new species were added annually to the list of prokaryotic names with standing in the nomenclature. These names were formed in accordance with the Rules of the International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes. Most of these names are not very interesting as specific epithets and word elements from existing names are repeatedly recycled. The rules of the Code provide many opportunities to create names in far more original ways. A survey of the lists of names of genera and species of prokaryotes shows that there is no lack of interesting names. The annotated selection presented here proves that at least some authors have exploited the possibilities allowed by the rules of the Code to name novel organisms in ways that are more attractive. I here call upon all colleagues who describe new taxa to devote more thought to the naming of new genera and species. It takes some effort, and it requires proper use of the lexicon of Classical Greek and Latin as well as an understanding of the Code and the guidelines of its orthography appendix. Creation of attractive names will boost the general interest in prokaryotic nomenclature.