Preliminary design document for taxon names and concepts

This page assumes that informal names (n. sp. 1) are not eligible to be protonyms. This has not been settled. An alternate page with the opposite treatment is also available.

Species File Software deals with taxon names and concepts in three contexts:
 * Nomenclatural, the names as specified by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, including those names classified as "not available." It is useful to distinguish different kinds of names. ◦Uninomial, the name treated as a single word for a taxon at a particular rank.  For example, "new species 3" is a uninomial even though it contains three words.  This is not treated further on this page.
 * Multinomial, the formal name for a taxon at the rank of genus or lower, which begins with a genus name and may contain from one to five uninomials. For convenience in managing the data, Species File Software treats a genus name as a multinomial because it may have been a subgenus at some time in its history.
 * Protonym, the uninomial that provides the author and year cited with a name as specified by the rules of nomenclature. Informal names not subject to the rules of nomenclature cannot be protonyms.  Emendations and misapplied names do not create new protonyms.


 * Conceptual, the concepts as defined by various references. This is an attempt to represent the concept as defined by the Taxonomic Databases Working Group.  But to be implemented in Species File Software, there must be a clear definition of what events cause changes in species concepts.  Common or vernacular names could also be called concepts, but they are not relevant here.
 * Data management, the names as used in database tables to facilitate management of information about names and concepts. "Datanym" is used here to mean the names in separate rows in tblTaxa in species files.  A datanym may change in rank.

Life Science Identifers (LSIDs) have not yet been implemented in Species File Software. LSIDs are in the design stage for protonyms, multinomials and concepts. It is probably not useful to provide LSIDs for datanyms.

A table will illustrate the relationships among these names and concepts. This is a subset of possible events selected to illustrate the differences. Blank cells in the following table mean no change affecting the name or concept.