Joint EDIT/PESI Page for Taxonomic Integrity Rules

This page is a compilation of taxonomic data integrity rules, which are used or can be used in the course of quality control processes in taxonomic databases. The list contains initially data integrity rules from Euro+Med plantbase and Fauna Europaea and is constantly updated and extended by PESI and EDIT participants. It is the basis for quality control mechanisms implemented in the EDIT CDM library and its associated import modules. Rules which are enforced by the core CDM data structures are not included in this list (see CDM v2.0 for the CDM model documentation).

Taxonomic integrity rule levels explained

Rule Id	Level	Domain	Source	Object	Rule	Implemented
1	1	All	FaEu (DET- BR001)/ E+M	Taxon name	Name elements (GenusOrUninomial, InfraGenericEpithet, SpecificEpithet and InfraSpecificEpithet) must use only standard Latin characters (52 ASCII characters) without spaces.	directly on fields in NonViralName
2	1	All	FaEu / E+M(2)	Taxon name	GenusOrUninomial and InfraGenericEpithet must start with an uppercase letter; all following letters must be lowercase letters.	directly on fields in NonViralName
3	1	All	FaEu / E+M(2)	Taxon name	SpecificEpithet and InfraSpecificEpithet must use only lowercase letters.	directly on fields in NonViralName
4	2	Zoology	FaEu (DET- BR014)	Taxon name	Superfamily names must end with -oidae.
5	3	Zoology	FaEu (BR006)	Taxon name	Family names must end with -idae.
6	2	Zoology	FaEu (DET- BR015)	Taxon name	Subamily names must end with -inae.
7	2	Zoology	FaEu (DET- BR016)	Taxon name	Tribe names must end with -ini.
8	2	Zoology	FaEu (DET- BR017)	Taxon name	Subtribe names must end with -ina.
9	1	All	E+M (8)	Taxon name	GenusOrUninomial is mandatory for all names.	directly on fields in NonViralName
10	2	All	E+M (5)	Taxon name	Suprageneric and genus names have neither InfraGenericEpithet nor SpecificEpithet nor InfraSpecificEpithet.	CorrectEpithetsForRank
11	2	All	FaEu / E+M	Taxon name	InfraGenericEpithet is mandatory only for infrageneric names.	CorrectEpithetsForRank
12	2	Botany	E+M (15)	Taxon name	Only infrageneric names have InfraGenericEpithet.	CorrectEpithetsForRank
13	2	All	FaEu / E+M	Taxon name	Species names must have SpecificEpithet (mandatory) but have no InfraSpecificEpithet.	CorrectEpithetsForRank
14	2	All	FaEu / E+M	Taxon name	SpecificEpithet and InfraSpecificEpithet are mandatory for infraspecific names	CorrectEpithetsForRank
15	2	Botany		Taxon name	GenusOrUninomial, InfraGenericEpithet and SpecificEpithet must all be diferent.
16	2	Botany		Taxon name	GenusOrUninomial, InfraGenericEpithet and InfraSpecificEpithet must all be diferent.
17	3	All		Basionymy	A taxon name and its basionym (original combination) must belong to the same homotypical group.
18	3	All		Basionymy	The basionym (original combination) author of a taxon name must be the combination author of its basionym if the basionymy relationship exists.	BasionymsMustShareEpithetsAndAuthors
19	3	All		Basionymy	Taxon names have one basionym (original combination) at most.
20	3	All	E+M (14)	Basionymy	Suprageneric names have no basionym (original combination).
21	3	Botany	E+M (21)	Basionymy	Aggregates and collective species have no basionym (original combination).
22	2	All	FaEu (BR036)	Taxon name	Authorship is mandatory for taxon names with rank lower than family (except aggregates and collective species in Botany and except misapplied names).	MustHaveAuthority
23	2	Botany	E+M (21)	Taxon name	Aggregates and collective species have no authorship.
24	3	All		Misapplication	Misapplied names have no authorship.
25	2	Botany	E+M (44)	Taxon name	Taxon names with a basionym authorship must also have a combination authorship.
26	2	Botany	E+M (45)	Taxon name	Taxon names with "ex-" authorships (combination or basionym) must also have the corresponding authorships.
27	2	All		Taxon name	Only names with rank above species may have a type name designation.
28	1	All	FaEu (BR037, BR038)	Taxon name	Authorstrings must use only standard Latin characters (52 ASCII characters), the symbols & - , . and a chosen relevant set of diacritic characters.	directly on fields in NonViralName
29	1	All	FaEu (BR040)	Taxon name	The words "and" and "et" are not allowed for authorstrings.
30	1	All	FaEu (BR041)	Taxon name	The publication year is mandatoy for all taxon names for which authorship is mandatory (see rule number 22).
31	1	Zoology	FaEu (BR043, BR044)	Taxon name	The publication year must be a four digit natural number between 1758 and the present year.
32	3	Botany		Taxon name	The publication year of the nomenclatural reference must be greater than or equal to 1753 and smaller than the present year. The first four characters must be numbers and may be followed by latin characters or include the following characters: - [ ] ( ) / ,.
33	3	All	FaEu (BR026, BR033)	Homonymy	Homonyms must have identical name elements but different authorship or publication year.
34	3	All	E+M (31)	Homonymy	Later / Junior homonyms must have either the name status "nom. illeg." or "nom. cons."
35	3	All	E+M (202)	Taxonomy	Accepted taxa have one taxonomic parent taxon at most.
36	3	Botany	E+M (203)	Taxonomy	Accepted aggregates and collective species must have two taxonomic children at least.
37	3	All		Taxonomy	Every accepted family must have at least one accepted genus as a taxonomic child; and every accepted genus must have at least one accepted species as a taxonomic child.
38	3	All	E+M (213)	Taxonomy	Parent taxa must have a higher rank than the children.	ChildTaxaMustBeLowerRankThanParent
39	3	All	E+M (214)	Taxonomy	Genus and species ranks may not be skipped over in taxonomical trees.	ChildTaxaMustNotSkipRanks
40	3	All	E+M (215)	Taxonomy	GenusOrUninomial must be identical for an accepted genus and all ist taxonomic descendents.	ChildTaxaMustDeriveNameFromParent
41	3	All	E+M (215)	Taxonomy	SpecificEpithet must be identical for an accepted species and all ist taxonomic descendents.	ChildTaxaMustDeriveNameFromParent
42	3	All	E+M (217)	Taxonomy	A taxon name may not be used by the same source both as an accepted name and as a synonym.	TaxonNameCannotBeAcceptedAndSynonym
43	3	All	E+M (227)	Synonymy	A synonym must have at least one synonymy relationship to an accepted taxa.	NotEmpty on Synonym.synonymRelationships
44	3	All		Synonymy	Homotypic / objective synonyms must belong to the same homotypical group as the accepted name.	HomotypicSynonymsShouldBelongToGroup
45	3	All		Synonymy	Heterotypic / subjective synonyms and the accepted name must belong to different homotypical groups.	HomotypicSynonymsShouldBelongToGroup
46	3	All	E+M (219)	Misapplication	Taxon names involved in a misapplication must have different sources ("sec.").
47	1	All	FaEu (BR102, BR103)	Source / Reference	Authorstrings must use only standard Latin characters (52 ASCII characters), the symbols & - , . and a chosen relevant set of diacritic characters.
48	1	All	FaEu (BR106)	Source / Reference	The publication year must be greater than or equal to 1000 and smaller than the present year. The first four characters must be numbers and may be followed by latin characters or include the following characters: - [ ] ( ) /,.
49	3	Zoology		Source / Reference	The publication year mentioned in the name (see rule number 31) must be the same as the publication year of the nomenclatural reference.
50	4	All		Taxonomy	Same names in different checklists (FaEu, E+M, ERMS) must have the same status (accepted / valid name or synonym).
51	4	All		Taxonomy	Same accepted names in different checklists (FaEu, E+M, ERMS) must have the same taxonomic parent.
52	4	All		Taxon name	Same authorstrings in different checklists (FaEu, E+M, ERMS) must have the same spelling.
53	4	All		Source / Reference	Same authorstrings in different checklists (FaEu, E+M, ERMS) must have the same spelling.
54	4	All		Source / Reference	Same titles in different checklists (FaEu, E+M, ERMS) must have the same spelling.