Biodiversity Data Use

Synonymy can arise when the same species has been described several times and a new name is given to the species each time it is described, or, when there is a change in the taxonomy of a species, for example, a species is moved from one genus to another. Only one species name can be accepted, and other names are what we call synonyms. These synonyms may still be in use to a lesser or greater extent and you should be sure when getting data from GBIF to obtain data for the taxonomic name you need. GBIF’s taxonomic backbone differentiates between accepted scientific names and synonyms, and unique identifiers in the form of taxon keys. Species searches https://www.gbif.org/species/search allow for filtering for accepted names and synonyms and taxon keys can be used for programmatic searches of GBIF.

Taxon Keys Scientific names can be messy. If you are accessing GBIF-mediated data programatically as opposed to via the website, taxon keys provide an effective way for defining searches based on taxonomy. Taxon keys are issued at the species, genus family, order, phylum and kingdom level. Unique identifiers are issued to accepted names with synonyms of those accepted names issued the same identifier. So, it may make sense to sort out the species by their unique taxon keys provided during the indexation of the dataset by GIBF.