TaxaPolishing

The TaxaPolishing feature is a part of the VirtualAssistant and it corrects incomplete taxa data in the biota sheet.

Preparation of incomplete biotic data in ingest Excel spreadsheets

Define biotic data in the taxa table

Initially, a data sheet is selected in a dialog box. Then the columns with the corresponding biotic data are selected. The file selection dialog for TaxaPolishing is shown below.

taxa_polishing_input

Search in MyWoRMS for missing entries in Excel Table

Search by Aphia Id

The TaxaPolishing searches for missing Aphia Ids to scientific name and vice versa. It makes corresponding requests to MyWorMS. When searching for a scientific name, no multiple selections can be made. A scientific mame is always found for an Aphia Id, or the taxon is not found at all.

Search by Name

However, if searching for missing Aphia Ids to scientic names, then there may be multiple results where the user has to make choices.

Below an example of individual choices the user should make is shown.

taxa_polishing_user_selection

Here the choices for an ambiguous response for the first query Neptunea is shown.

taxa_polishing_user_selection_single

Add missing entries to the Excel table

Missing entries are added to the Excel table. All problems encountered are logged and shown to the user at the end (see the Mistfits section of MyWoRMS). Furthermore, all selections are summarized once again and given to the user in a final protocol.

The following is a protocol of an entire TaxaPolishing process.

taxa_polishing_result