Comments on: Fire threatens wild gourd…or maybe not http://agro.biodiver.se/2008/06/fire-threatens-wild-gourdor-maybe-not/ Crops, animals, wild relatives ... Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:34:23 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Anastasia http://agro.biodiver.se/2008/06/fire-threatens-wild-gourdor-maybe-not/comment-page-1/#comment-505180 Anastasia Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:15:14 +0000 http://agro.biodiver.se/?p=1728#comment-505180 The USDA has some ascensions of Cucurbita okeechobeensis, so even if they are lost in the wild the species still exists http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/splist.pl?3164. One subspecies has no ascensions due to its rarity. Can people submit some? If so, how about starting a USDA/public partnership to obtain, catalog, and maintain these food species relatives? The USDA has some ascensions of Cucurbita okeechobeensis, so even if they are lost in the wild the species still exists http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/splist.pl?3164. One subspecies has no ascensions due to its rarity. Can people submit some? If so, how about starting a USDA/public partnership to obtain, catalog, and maintain these food species relatives?

]]> By: Jeremy http://agro.biodiver.se/2008/06/fire-threatens-wild-gourdor-maybe-not/comment-page-1/#comment-504377 Jeremy Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:40:37 +0000 http://agro.biodiver.se/?p=1728#comment-504377 Nice work, Luigi, but ... how do you know that the geo-data for those wild cucurbits are accurate? Maybe they've already gone up in smoke? I ask because there's a bit of a debate going on about the accuracy of data accessed through GBIF, made obvious by <a href="http://iphylo.blogspot.com/2008/06/more-gbif-errors-courtesy-of-fishbase.html" rel="nofollow">marine fishes on very dry land</a>. The crucial element, of course, is whose responsibility it is to ensure that data are accurate. GBIF says "the data owners'". But GBIF users say that some owners don't seem to be either motivated or resourced to do the job. In the comments to the blog post there's a suggestion that if it were easy for users to notify data owners about possible errors then it might prompt owners to make the corrections. Which is fine for marine fish in the middle of Africa, but might not suit smaller inaccuracies. Nice work, Luigi, but … how do you know that the geo-data for those wild cucurbits are accurate? Maybe they’ve already gone up in smoke?

I ask because there’s a bit of a debate going on about the accuracy of data accessed through GBIF, made obvious by marine fishes on very dry land.

The crucial element, of course, is whose responsibility it is to ensure that data are accurate. GBIF says “the data owners’”. But GBIF users say that some owners don’t seem to be either motivated or resourced to do the job. In the comments to the blog post there’s a suggestion that if it were easy for users to notify data owners about possible errors then it might prompt owners to make the corrections.

Which is fine for marine fish in the middle of Africa, but might not suit smaller inaccuracies.

]]>