I am very glad that the Z39.50 Biology Implementers Group (ZBIG) is working on developing a Z39.50 profile, dubbed the Darwin Core. It will provide a common language for data exchange which promises to make it possible to send a single query over the internet to multiple biological collection databases each using their own database structures (flat file, relational, object oriented), data fields and formats and to have the data returned in real time as if a single database was being queried. It will also allow participating databases shared access to taxonomic authority files. I am glad that the shared data exchange language is being developed and will be maintained by the biological sciences community. I don't see the development of the Darwin Core as a substitute for individual collection websites or sites like those being developed at TAMU which will provide public outreach to those not connected to the ZBIG network within the internet.

Visitors to the ZBIG website at http://chipotle.nhm.ukans.edu/zbig/ under The Darwin Core, The Collection Attributes, and The Taxon Attributes are encouraged to suggest changes or to help flesh out definitions by sending you an email. It would be helpful to see the profile attributes in something more approaching real time (last modified May 1, 1998) so that the comments I submit will be more relevant to the current draft. Here is my comment on the "very preliminary list of attributes":

Suggested changes to the Use Attributes for Biological Collections.

Add an attribute Type Name Description: The name for which the specimen was designated as a type. Rational: Attribute 42 Type Status tells us if a specimen is a type but doesn't tell us for what scientific name it serves as type. Attribute 16 Scientific Name is the most recent determination of the specimen. A type specimen may or may not be a type of its accepted name. It is not always possible to determine from the accepted name what the Type Name of a type is. If the accepted name is a nomenclatural synonym of the Type Name, it would be possible to trace the synonomy back to the basionym which will in this case be the Type Name.

Ex.: Type Name: Aster sonomensis E. Greene
Accepted Name: Aster chilensis Nees var. sonomensis (E. Greene) Jepson
Basionym of Accepted Name: Aster sonomensis E. Greene

If on the other hand the accepted name is a taxonomic synonym of the Type Name it will be based on a different type and its basionym will not be the Type Name.

Ex.: Type Name: Aster sonomensis E. Greene
Accepted Name: Symphyotrichum lentum (E. Greene) Nesom
Basionym of Accepted Name: Aster lentus E. Greene

Suppose that the holotype of Aster sonomensis E. Greene has been destroyed and I want to examine the available isotypes in order to select a lectotype. I would not be able to find out in what institutions and collections they are housed using a Darwin Core Profile query based on Scientific Name and Type Status. If I knew attribute 25 Collector Name and the collector's collection number (for which no attribute has been assigned in the preliminary list) of the type I could obtain this information for some names. (This query would also be useful as it would return not only type specimens which have been recognized as such in the collections where they are housed as indicated by attribute 42 Type Status but also unrecognized types.) However many older descriptions do not give the collection number of the type. To locate all the recognized types for a taxonomic name a Type Name attribute will be needed.

Steve Ginzbarg, Assistant Curator
Herbarium (UNA)
Department of Biological Sciences
Box 870345
The University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345

(205) 348-1829, Fax: (205) 348-6460
sginzbar@biology.as.ua.edu