Abstract

ROJAS GARCIA, Fabiola; WEGIER, Ana  and  PONCE MENDOZA, Alejandro. Quantitative assessment of errors in the scientific nomenclature of the national forest and soils inventory 2004-2009. Terra Latinoam [online]. 2014, vol.32, n.4, pp.325-331. ISSN 2395-8030.

Mistakes in spelling and synonyms can result in the overestimation of richness and diversity in forest databases (FD) and affect their usefulness (e.g. carbon sequestration analyzes). A method to reduce those mistakes in FD is proposed. The National Forest and Soils Inventory 2004-2009 (INFyS, for its initials in Spanish) was analyzed, using the software Taxonstand in R, which automatically standardizes plant names using the plant list (2013) as a reference guide. INFyS reported 3374 species. This number was reduced to 2996 after using Taxonstand, which detected 376 synonyms and five nonexistent species. Misspellings or synonyms overestimated diversity and richness could adversely affect future use of the INFyS dataset. It is recommended that all plant databases be standardized using a widely accessible working nomenclatural list for plant species names, such as the plant list (2013), by implementing Taxonstand software, before publication.

Keywords : database standardization; inflating diversity; INFyS; nomenclature; synonymy; Taxonstand.

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