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Topic: Apoidea

Searching against Apoidea (Aculeates list), which i would have thought would bring back all bees with expand taxa set, doesn't seem to work (this may just be if it hasn't been included in the organism table?).

Would it be possible to organise this in the dictionary?

Natural History & Biodiversity Data Enthusiast

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Re: Apoidea

Reporting down the hierarchy doesn't work with intermediate levels in the taxonomic hierarchy, (sub/super) however you have never been able to trust this and  would get different results depending on which list you started from.  New taxa in the list of additional names or not on the list used as a starting point would not a have been returned.  This also applied to using Class/Order/Family as a starting point resulting in expansion of the hierarchy missing out taxa.  There have been lots of complaints about this, because it gives the impression that something is working when it isn't. The main concerrn being that the results were inconsistent.

Now reporting Class/Order/Family will work consistently irrespective of the starting point and find everything irrespective of which list they are on. The downside is that before with sub/super levels it may have found some taxa, but not all of them, now it will not find any. Intermediate levels need to be fully integrated into the Organism table for this to work and I think Chris is giving this some thought. I had hoped to display a warning if taxa were selected for expansion which don't work, but there wasn't time to do this.

Mike Weideli

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Re: Apoidea

Hi Mike, Thanks for the clarification.

Natural History & Biodiversity Data Enthusiast

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Re: Apoidea

Hi,

Yes the initial implementation of the Organism table went for a simplified 'Darwin Core' standard of linking, which sticks to the major ranks and omits the intermediates. We aim to include these intermediate ranks eventually but they tend to be the ones that change most frequently and which are up for more debate.

Best wishes,
Chris R.

Chris Raper, Manager of the UK Species Inventory, Angela Marmont Centre for UK Biodiversity,
Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD.  (tel: 020 7942 5894)
also Tachinid Recording Scheme (http://tachinidae.org.uk/)