Working with taxa, categories and synonyms

Taxon

A taxon is a species with a formal Linnean binomen (e.g. Ammonia beccarii), an informal code (e.g. Ostracod sp.1) or a convenient term for a group of indistinguishable species (e.g. rotaliform foraminifera or Ammonia spp.).

To add a new taxon, select Taxon | New... from the menu bar or use the add taxon icon on the toolbar. Use the Taxon dialog to enter the new taxon's details.

Category

In StrataBugs all taxa are assigned to categories for convenience (e.g. dinocysts, planktonic foraminifera, diatoms, etc.) and to assist in searching the database. Taxa can also be displayed by category on charts.

By default, the taxonomic names in the StrataBugs taxonomic database are arranged in categories. Each category contains a number of taxa which you may wish to group together for the purposes of searching the database or displaying together on charts. Each taxon MUST belong to one, and ONLY one category.

Every category has an identification code of at least two letters (e.g. 'FO' for Foraminifera). You can add up to three more letters to a category code to create subcategories - for example, Foraminifera benthic (FOB) is a subcategory of Foraminifera (FO), Foraminifera agglutinating (FOBA) is a subcategory of Foraminifera benthic (FOB), and so on. Category hierarchies like this can be useful when plotting charts.

You can add a new category or assign different colours to the categories via the Categories dialog (select Taxon | Categories... from the menu bar). You can also assign a taxon to a different category by editing the taxon with the Taxon dialog, but in general we advise against this and suggest you use Groups instead (learn about working with groups).

Synonym

Synonymy can be used to link separate taxon entries which refer to the same taxonomic concept. The taxon dictionary is not modified, but in certain situations the preferred name will be used instead of junior synonyms if synonymy has been set up.

To add a synonym, first select the taxon in the Taxa Internal Frame. Then select Taxon | Synonymy... from the menu bar. This opens the Synonymy dialog. Select another name to add to the list of junior synonyms.

It is possible to have more than one synonym scheme. You may wish to do this if, for example, you deal with spore names and botanical names and wish to set up different preferred names for different projects. Change the synonym scheme, or add/edit synonym schemes, open the Synonymy dialog as above and click the ellipsis (...) next to the synonym scheme field, and select a scheme from the resulting dialog.

You cannot create a chain of synonymy; a taxon cannot become a junior synonym if it itself is already a preferred name.

Merging

Unlike specifying synonymy, merging taxa deletes entries from the taxon dictionary. This is useful, for instance, where there is a spelling error in the taxon dictionary and the wrongly spelt taxon occurs in wells. You should merge the two, with the correctly spelt taxon (Taxon A) as the target. Any occurrences of the incorrectly spelt taxon (Taxon B) will be changed to occurrences of Taxon A.

Two merge two taxa, select them both in the Taxa window and press Taxon | Merge... to open the Merge Taxa dialog.