1 Reply by brianmiller

  • brianmiller
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Re: Identifying species not available in taxon dictionary

I have a list of species that have come from a MapMate export. I know there are many in this list that do not match to the Recorder Taxon dictionary. I therefore did a query in Access to get a list of those that do not match. However, I think I may have done this on the wrong table.

I queried my list to the Taxon table and ended up with about 297 not matching.

However, this morning I did the same thing comparing to the Index_Taxon_Name table and the Preferred_Name field and this time it came up with 325. Querying to the Actual_Name instead gives me the same as the previous result to the Taxon table of 297.

Have I missed a trick here please? In order to determine which species are not going to match should I be doing this query in a different way?

When I look at the Taxon table it has 184976 distinct records of Item_Name whereas the ITN has 111060 distinct records of Preferred_Name.

Hope someone can help please?

Brian

Brian Miller
(Conservation Officer (Buckinghamshire), BBOWT)

brianmiller's Website

2 Reply by johnvanbreda

  • johnvanbreda
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Re: Identifying species not available in taxon dictionary

Hi Brian

The difference between ITN.Preferred_Name and the Taxon table is that only the names considered correct are in ITN.Preferred_Name, whereas Taxon includes every possible name in use (at least the ones known to the system), including common names and synonyms. ITN.Actual_Name is more like Taxon.Item_Name, in that any name known to the system is listed. So, in your example there are 73916 names in the system that are not considered the formally accepted version of the taxon name!

I hope that's clear,

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

johnvanbreda's Website

3 Reply by brianmiller

  • brianmiller
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Re: Identifying species not available in taxon dictionary

Hi John,

Thanks that does make more sense now. However, the fact that ITN.Preferred_Name are only the names considered correct, then should my result not have shown the greater number of results against the Taxon.Item_Name rather than what did result with greater against the ITN.Preferred_Name?

From what you have highlighted then, my method of searching for species that do not match should have been correct, as the species listed from MapMate may not actually be the 'Preferred Name'.

When the import wizard searches the dictionaries though, does it do this only against the ITN.Preferred_Name or against the Taxon table? If not the latter, is it not the case then that it may not pick up a species to be imported that is not a preferred name?

Brian

Brian Miller
(Conservation Officer (Buckinghamshire), BBOWT)

brianmiller's Website

4 Reply by johnvanbreda

  • johnvanbreda
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Re: Identifying species not available in taxon dictionary

Hi Brian,

From what I understand you got 297 non-matches against Taxon.Item_Name or ITN.Actual_Name, and 325 against ITN.Preferred. As ITN.Preferred is a subset of the other fields, this is what I would expect - you find less matches (therefore more non-matches) when comparing against only preferred names because some of the names coming from MapMate are not preferred in Recorder.

As to the Import Wizard match process, it compares your input text with ITN.Actual_Name, and if that does not match it also retests using ITN.Actual_Name plus the authority. So, it should happily import both preferred and non-preferred names, but only if they are recognised in the dictionary.

Kind Regards

John van Breda
Biodiverse IT

johnvanbreda's Website

5 Reply by brianmiller

  • brianmiller
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Re: Identifying species not available in taxon dictionary

Hi John,

johnvanbreda wrote:

As ITN.Preferred is a subset of the other fields, this is what I would expect - you find less matches (therefore more non-matches) when comparing against only preferred names

Yes, you are right, I was thinking it the wrong way round... or just totally confused!

Thanks for the clarification on the import process, it is encouraging and should mean I get most imported.

Thanks

Brian

Brian Miller
(Conservation Officer (Buckinghamshire), BBOWT)

brianmiller's Website