[API-users] numDescendants in species/?name response

[Nozomi James Ytow]

Hi Markus,

the issue is that some non-GBIF backbone records telling zero numDecendants
althoug they have child record(s) in their dataset(s).
I expcect non-zero numDecendants value if there is/are child/children record(s)
in the same dataset, as previous. 

> If you search the GBIF backbone for Lembus you get 2 records. One synonym without descendants and one accepted taxon:
> http://api.gbif.org/v1/species/?name=Lembus&datasetKey=d7dddbf4-2cf0-4f39-9b2a-bb099caae36c <http://api.gbif.org/v1/species/?name=Lembus&datasetKey=d7dddbf4-2cf0-4f39-9b2a-bb099caae36c>

numDecendants works as previous for GBIF backbone records, but not for other dataset.  For example,
http://api.gbif.org/v1/species/?name=Lembus&datasetKey=9ca92552-f23a-41a8-a140-01abaa31c931
tells numDecendants=0 but there is 
http://api.gbif.org/v1/species/?name=Lembus%20infusionum&datasetKey=9ca92552-f23a-41a8-a140-01abaa31c931
of which parentKey designanates the record above.  I expect the  numDecendants of the Lembus record
designated by the parentKey to have non-zero value.

> That looks correct to me and the synonym also does not return any children correctly:
> http://api.gbif.org/v1/species/2386427/children <http://api.gbif.org/v1/species/2386427/children>

It is right bebause the record does not have child recods.

> We did change the underlying checklistbank database today which introduces considerable new data as all data in there has been freshly crawled from scratch.
> Datasets that have been offline, e.g. NZOR, are therefore currently still missing.
> We also had some issue indexing wikipedia and Index Fungorum, so those 2 are also not yet in but I hope to get those indexed over the weekend latest.
> Lacking wikipedia unfortunately means there are much less vernacular names, descriptions and images available also for the GBIF backbone.

It might be side-effect of the change.  I wait for a while...

> The backbone itself has not changed at all.

It is not isssue of the backbone.  Checklistbank is a good datasouce of taxon concepts captured in datasets.

James