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

[dipteryx at freeler.nl]

Van: Tony.Rees at csiro.au [mailto:Tony.Rees at csiro.au]
Verzonden: vr 2-10-2009 3:52
> 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.

[...]
***
Well yes, in such cases the keen user may guess that such names refer
at least possibly to the same taxon. Of those guesses some will prove 
to pan out and some won't (plenty of cases where an author who likes
a particular epithet uses it repeatedly in naming species in closely 
related genera). And course, the reverse will also be often the case,
where the keen user assumes two names with different author citation 
do not refer to the same taxon when in fact they do (authorship being
more changeable than the weather). 

However, this rather misses the point in the thread of a week ago, 
which was that the name itself (i.e. without authorship citation) is 
perfectly adequate as a label, but that use of a name is incomplete 
if the publication omits to indicate in what sense (for what taxon 
concept, aka circumscription of the taxonomic group) it was used. 
If the publication does indicate in what sense the name is used 
(i.e. Imaginaria putativa sensu FNA) then no guesswork at all is 
involved. So, it is a fabricated argument.

Actually, this looks like a good time to forward an observation. 
For a long time I have been noticing that there is a particular 
enthousiasm for including author citations among certain non-taxonomists, 
and that this enthousiasm is not linked to knowledge of what an 
author citation is, or any care for spelling. So, thesis: 
in usage of scientific names by non-taxonomists the inclusion of an 
author citation is a good predictor of the presence of spelling errors.  

Have a nice weekend!
Paul