rankless nomenclature

[Barry Roth]

The quote below does not completely square with my understanding.  A species' name now changes when some taxonomist allocates the species to a different genus.  In that case, unless the new combination so formed is a junior homonym, nothing happens to the specific epithet.  But the combination of genus and species name, which is the "name" that end-users like foresters, fisheries workers, etc., are concerned about, is changed.  Allocation to a new genus does not necessarily affect the circumscription (i.e., scope, inclusiveness) of the species.

Decoupling nomenclature from classification would reduce the incidence of such name changes.  The frequency of new, far-reaching taxonomic revisions may increase in the future because new data sets are coming in fast and software for estimating relationships that lead users to taxonomic changes is widely available.  Does the rate of name changes need to accelerate also?

Barry Roth


  Una Smith <una.smith at YALE.EDU> wrote:
The names of species change when their circumscriptions change or they
get moved to a genus where a similar epithet has already been used for
a different species. Otherwise, new phylogenetic relationships do not
entail name changes (or am I missing something big here???). So, the
draft PhyloCode does nothing for the "problem" that most "users" have
with the current "Linnaean" system


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