OTUs based on unpublished materials and PBDB integration

[ecurrano]

The paleobotanists have been thinking about future-proofing PBot for PBDB 2.0 design and the full integration of PBot and PBDB. Currently, OTUs can be supported solely by unpublished references, which likely violates PBDB regulations and best practices. Would it be helpful to add a check-box on the OTU page about whether or not an OTU has been officially published? Would this be helpful in designating which data can be piped to PBDB and which cannot? Alternately, perhaps this is not needed since the reference node holds whether a reference has been published and thus whether it can be included in PBDB.

[aazaff]

Is it possible that an OTU could be associated with an officially referenced publication but not technically be published in that publication?

[ecurrano]

It is technically possible, as someone could add any reference they want and I can foresee people adding references to an OTU documenting the occurrence of an OTU in a collection, rather than the reference that erected the OTU. We can dissuade users from adding a reference to an OTU if that OTU is not mentioned in the publication.

[doricon]

Something comes to mind that we may need to discuss. Specimens can be assigned to OTUs from different collections - these would be different occurrence records in PBDB and each one should have a published reference.

In PBot, the OTU should have a reference, which should be the one justifying the name and type specimens. For non-type specimens, the published references for assigning those specimens to an OTU could be the Collection or an optional Specimen reference. We don't currently explicitly indicate reference for the occurrence or assignment of a specimen to a taxon.