[Taxacom] Author inclusion or non-inclusion with species names

Fri Oct 2 02:07:23 CDT 2009

The issue of generic recombination does complicate matters, but note that author/date inclusion per se only provides a clue (not a definitive answer at a glance) as to whether or not two names in different genera refer to the same species. But this is only really a problem for "taxonomic texts/sites" in the broad sense, not for popular field guides, encyclopedias, etc. Clearly, we need a proper taxonomic database to consult if we need to know previous combinations (it need not be a very complex database - Wikispecies would suffice), but just adding author and/or date to wider texts/sites seems like a rather third rate solution. I would count ToL and WoRMS as broadly taxonomic sites, not the sort of "texts aimed at non taxonomists" that I think was intended (which explicitly included field guides, and that sort of thing).
The generic recombination problem is just one kind of synonymy sensu lato, and just adding author/date doesn't really help to solve anything. So again, we need a centralised database of synonymic information, but it needn't be anything very complex ...

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From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Paul Kirk [p.kirk at cabi.org]
Sent: Friday, 2 October 2009 7:48 p.m.
To: Tony.Rees at csiro.au; dipteryx at freeler.nl; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Author inclusion or non-inclusion with species names

I think my examples, without taking the 'etc' too far off target, are finished products. What you suggest as requiring authors are 'works in progress' - on which I agree ... to a certain extent

Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Tony.Rees at csiro.au
Sent: 02 October 2009 02:52
To: dipteryx at freeler.nl; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Author inclusion or non-inclusion with species names

Dear all,

Just picking up on this element of a thread as of a week ago (a week being a long time on Taxacom!!) - see appended email extracts for orientation...

I would take issue with the comments below regarding the non-desirability of species author names in "texts aimed at non taxonomists" for a couple of reasons - first, texts or websites often have a range of potential users, so "taxonomists" may end up consulting "non taxonomic" resources and vice versa, and second, inclusion of author names is often a clue that taxa which are classified in different ways on different lists may in fact be the same apart from a genus transfer. E.g. if you see "Onykia loennbergii Ishikawa and Wakiya, 1914" on the Tree of Life site (which you could arguably claim is aimed at non-taxonomists), http://www.tolweb.org/Onykia_loennbergii , there is an improved chance that the keen user may spot that this is at least possibly the same as "Moroteuthis loennbergii Ishikawa and Wakiya, 1914" elsewhere, e.g. SeaLifebase (http://www.sealifebase.org/summary/speciessummary.php?id=57316), and so on, than if the authority were omitted in both cases.

A converse aspect is that of spotting potential duplicates on lists, e.g. in WoRMS a day or so back I found the following name pairs, all currently listed as valid, in Ascidiacea:

Didemnum patalum (Herdman, 1899)
Didemnum patulum (Herdman, 1899)
Didemnum peyreffitense Brément, 1913
Didemnum peyrefittense Brement, 1913
Didemnum spongioide Sluiter, 1909
Didemnum spongoides Sluiter, 1909
Polysyncraton longitubis Kott, 2004
Polysyncraton longtubis Kott, 2004
Polysyncraton multiforme Kott, 2001
Polysyncraton multiformis Kott, 2001
Polysyncraton multipapilla Monniot, 1993 Polysyncraton multipapillae Monniot, 1993 Polysyncraton poro Monniot & Monniot, 1987 Polysyncraton porou Monniot & Monniot, 1987 Didemnum mortenseni Michaelsen, 1924 Polysyncraton mortensi (Michaelsen, 1924)

Now at some point, hopefully, thes will be cleaned up, but at least inclusion of the authority provides some guidance to the user (taxonomist or non-taxonomist) as to what might be going on here (i.e. more names than actual taxa). Of course if the authority is different as well, one would draw a different conclusion.

Regards - Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of dipteryx at freeler.nl
Sent: Friday, 25 September 2009 5:53 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] globalnames?

This rather speaks of a database mentality? "In texts aimed at non taxonomists (field guides, red data lists, quarantine lists etc)" these "potentially confusing homonyms", if any exist at all, will be so few as not being worth listing (again, that is the whole purpose of nomenclature). They will be topic-related, also.

Paul

Van: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu namens David Remsen (GBIF)
Verzonden: do 24-9-2009 15:51

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