ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 4259
Session = 4.1.6


THE IMPLICATIONS OF PHYLOGENETIC NOMENCLATURE FOR DATABASEDEVELOPMENT


Torsten Eriksson1,2 & William S. Alverson2, 1Bergius Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden, 2Harvard University Herbaria, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.


The International Plant Names Index, and other databases, provide scientific names of organisms. The design of their data structure is heavily influenced by the pre-phylogenetic codes of nomenclature, in particular by the presence of taxonomic ranks. Introduction of a Phylogenetic Nomenclature may necessitate changes in the structure of these databases. This talk will explore requirements of databases providing or using phylogenetic names. Phylogenetic Nomenclature is potentially simpler in structure than the Linnaean system since only species and monophyletic groups of species have names, compared to names of several different ranks in the Linnaean system. Development of new data sources may be much simplified because of this and particularly because of the Web-based registration system envisioned. Finally, the PhyloCode registration database and examples of possible connections to and from other databases are discussed.


HTML-Version made 7. July 1999 by Kurt Stüber