[Bioperl-l] getting/setting species names with Bio::Species

[Mark A. Jensen]

I'm not that familiar with Bio::Species either, but this looks
like conflicting semantics betwen Bio::Species and Bio::SeqIO.
Bio::SeqIO sets the species accessor to the 'species' element of
the lineage array, I believe.
FWIW, I'd prefer "binomial" = "genus" . "species"
MAJ
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Messina" <David.Messina at sbc.su.se>
To: "BioPerl List" <bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org>
Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 10:17 AM
Subject: [Bioperl-l] getting/setting species names with Bio::Species


> Hi everybody,
>
> I'm having a little trouble with names in Bio::Species objects.
>
> According to the Bio::Species documentation, if I have a species name as a 
> string, like "Homo sapiens", I can get and set that using the species method:
>
> my $my_species_obj = Bio::Species->new();
> $my_species_obj->species('Homo sapiens');
>
> print $my_species_obj->species;     # 'Homo sapiens'
>
>
> That works fine if I create the Bio::Species object myself.
>
> But if I try to get that string back out from a BIo::Species object created by 
> SeqIO from a genbank file, I get just 'sapiens' back:
>
> my $io = Bio::SeqIO->new('-format' => 'genbank',
>                         '-file'   => 'hoxa2.gb');
> my $seq_obj = $io->next_seq;
> my $io_species_obj = $seq_obj->species;
>
> print $io_species_obj->species;     # 'sapiens'
>
>
> I think that happens because genbank records have more taxonomic info about 
> the species name, like the genus (and in fact the whole taxonomic 
> categorization: kingdom phylum order, etc). So the genus is stored separately.
>
> Poking around a bit more in Bio::Species, I turned up the method 'binomial', 
> which appears to do the right thing, returning genus and species in both 
> cases. Except, as you can see, the space is stripped out for my 
> species-name-is-just-a-string object:
>
> print $my_species_obj->binomial;    # 'Homosapiens'
> print $io_species_obj->binomial;    # 'Homo sapiens'
>
>
> I'm not very familiar with Bio::Species (and its parent Bio::Taxon); am I 
> using it correctly above, or is there a better way?
>
> If not, this kinda looks like a bug to me. I've got a patch which works and 
> passes the BioPerl test suite.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Dave
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Bioperl-l mailing list
> Bioperl-l at lists.open-bio.org
> http://lists.open-bio.org/mailman/listinfo/bioperl-l
>