Formatted Scientific Name

A scientific name that can be applied to one or more Elements.

Data entry details:

The Text Editor should be used to properly italicize the name according to standard scientific conventions.

For species:

For plants and animals, the name entered should be a scientific binomial, trinomial, or quadranomial, a hybrid name in standard format, or for undescribed or questionable species or infraspecies, a placeholder name (indicated by a check in the Placeholder Name checkbox). See Business Rules for Using Unpublished or Placeholder Names for Species Elements. Plant and animal scientific names should be italicized except for the abbreviations “ssp.”, “var.”, “sp.”, “x”, and placeholder number. Names that will be used as the scientific name for non-taxonomic entities (e.g., animal assemblages or champion trees) are also entered in this field.

Diacritical marks (such as the apostrophe, accent, umlaut, etc.) are not used in Scientific Names.

Article 60.6 of the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants (Melbourne Code) (McNeill et al. 2011) states that diacritical signs are not used in scientific names. It states, “When names are drawn from words in which such signs appear, the signs are to be suppressed with the necessary transcription of the letters so modified.”

Article 27 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999) also states, “No diacritic or other mark (such as an apostrophe), or ligature of the letters a and e (æ) or o and e (œ) is to be used in a scientific name.”

However, if a name is published that contains a diacritical mark, a Scientific Name record can be created containing the mark so that the name can be entered as a synonym (to allow searches containing the mark to produce the correct result). In this case, the record containing the name with the diacritic should have:

Nomenclaturally Established = No

Nomenclaturally Established Name = the Scientific Name record containing the name without the diacritic

Relationship to Established Name = orthographic variant

Changes in spelling: If a publication is found to have used a misspelling of a scientific name and a record exists with the misspelling, keep both spellings in separate records. In the record for the misspelling, enter "No" in Nomenclaturally Established and link it to the established name. If there is clear evidence that the misspelling in that publication was a typo only, enter "misspelling" for Relationship to Established Name. Otherwise enter "orthographic variant."

If there is clear evidence that a scientific name was typed incorrectly in a Scientific Name record in Biotics only (never in a publication or external website), create a new Scientific Name record with the correct spelling and an internal note about the bad spelling. The record with the typographical error should be replaced where it is used with the record containing the corrected spelling and can then be deleted.

For communities:

The name should be entered in the format specified by the International Vegetation Classification (IVC), International Ecological Classification Standard (IECS), if applicable, or other community classification system. For more detailed information, see the nomenclature rules for community scientific names. Note that in community names, ssp. and var. are italicized while spp. and sp. are not.

All records:

Biotics prevents saving more than one Scientific Name record with the same values in Formatted Scientific Name and Author Name. It is possible to save records with the same value in Formatted Scientific Name as long as Author Name is different.

If it ever becomes necessary to create records for the same Scientific Name with identical or null values in Author Name that will be applied to elements in different Name Categories (rules of nomenclature allow the same species scientific name to be applied to organisms in different kingdoms), the Name Category field can be added to the validation combination.

Data Model Details:

Window: Scientific Name

Section: Identifiers

Field: Formatted Scientific Name

Database Table: SCIENTIFIC_NAME

Column: formatted_scientific_name

Data Type: VARCHAR2(500)

Optionality: NOT NULL

Default Value:

Foreign Key from:

Column Name:

Display Column:

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