We will need to support subgenera

18766
Reporter: rdmpage
Type: Bug
Summary: We will need to support subgenera
Priority: Major
Status: Open
Created: 2016-10-06 13:35:41.449
Updated: 2016-10-06 13:35:41.449
        
Description: Subgenera are ignored by GBIF, which in many ways is the right thing to do as they can be a complete pain. *However*, there are some taxonomic groups where they are used, notably in taxa that have a huge impact on human health such as black flies and mosquitoes. For example Wilkerson et al. provide a recent list of genera and subgenera in mosquitoes. At the moment these subgenera tend to be stripped out of the GBIF backbone classification, and often end up "floating as genera with no species attached to the enclosing family (e.g. Simuliidae). This makes the classification of these groups in GBIF look messy, and often not closely aligned with what researchers in that area might expect.

While ignoring subgenera simplifies life, and often subgenera are a mess and a cause of huge instability in names, my sense is that there are some groups where they are vital, and I worry that GBIF will appear irrelevant to those communities. If GBIF can't deliver information on major (and well-studied) vectors of human diseases in a form that users in that area will recognise, then we have a problem.

Is it feasible to consider supporting subgenera, at least for well-studied groups?

Wilkerson, R. C., Linton, Y.-M., Fonseca, D. M., Schultz, T. R., Price, D. C., & Strickman, D. A. (2015, July 30). Making Mosquito Taxonomy Useful: A Stable Classification of Tribe Aedini that Balances Utility with Current Knowledge of Evolutionary Relationships. (Z.-J. Liu, Ed.)PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science (PLoS). http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133602]]>