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ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » National Germplasm Resources Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #316608
Title: The Melbourne Code Appendices: announcing a new approach for tracking nomenclatural decisions and a analysis of the history of nomenclatural proposals

Author
item Wiersema, John
item MCNEILL, J - Royal Botanical Gardens
item TURLAND, N.J. - Botanischer Garten Und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem
item ORLI, S.S. - Smithsonian Institute
item WAGNER, W.L. - Smithsonian Institute

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/27/2015
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: A newly expanded digital resource exists for tracking decisions on all nomenclature proposals potentially contributing to Appendices II-VIII of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants. This resource originated with the Smithsonian Institution's Proposals and Disposals website created by Dan H. Nicolson in 2000 to track conservation/rejection proposals, but it now also covers proposals to suppress works or requests for binding decisions. It was created to accommodate the steadily expanding content of the Appendices in relation to the main body of the Code. The database is capable of generating these Appendices, and has been used for the Melbourne Code. Users can query content in various ways to review proposal histories or to extract all or part of the Appendices through a web interface. The underlying proposal data have been compared for each edition of the Code to evaluate trends in the proposals or their evaluation process over time. Such comparisons include the type of nomenclatural remedy sought, the major organismal group concerned, the numbers of names involved, the timeliness of the evaluation process, the proposal success rate, and the diversity of proposal authorship. Proposal success was further evaluated by the type of remedy sought and by major groups.