[Taxacom] Generic type of large genus belongs in different genus

Wed Apr 10 18:08:16 CDT 2013

It won't. Aedes aegypti is still called that although it really is now Stegomyia aegypti.
No matter where melanogaster ends up, people will always know/remember it as Drosophila melanogaster.

On 4/10/13 12:46 PM, "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz<mailto:stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>> scribbled the following tidbit:

It is still not clear to me that using Sophophora melanogaster as a name for Drosophila melanogaster would have any significant negative consequences at all! We just need a good system for tagging names either with their original combinations, or with some kind of LSID. Then you can call species whatever you like, but the link will be there to an invariant identifier, which presumably can be recognised by computers.
Cheers, Stephen

________________________________
From: Roderic Page <r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk<mailto:r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk>>
To: TAXACOM <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
Sent: Thursday, 11 April 2013 10:23 AM
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Generic type of large genus belongs in different genus

Dear Doug,

I confess ignorance regarding the ICZN code, but I'm not aware that it mandates that congeneric species be, in fact, related.

I'm not advocating abandoning the code, rather (and I am regretting ever opening my mouth) I am simply asking whether changing names to fit a classification is worth the decline in our ability to find information about that taxon. From my perspective we are trading information retrieval against a crude tool to represent relationships. Given that we have better ways of representing relationship than genus + species, maybe we should ponder leaving names alone. Taking Drosophila melanogaster as an example, I see no reason to change its name, no matter where it goes on the fly tree.

Regards

Rod

On 10 Apr 2013, at 22:55, Doug Yanega wrote:

On 4/10/13 2:19 PM, Roderic Page wrote:
Dear Mary,
It's not so much that names are without meaning, it's just that we have to be circumspect about how we interpret them. A species called "Aus australiensis" is most likely to be found in Australia, but it might not. If not, I'd accept that the name was misleading and move on. I don't change the name to more accurately reflect its distribution (nor would I change it back if it was rediscovered in Australia).
I'm suggesting we apply the same approach to relationships. Two congeneric species are likely to be related, but might not be. If they aren't, could we not live with that? Must we change the name?
In my extended family, surnames hardly correspond to actual relationships: some children have different surnames names to their mother, some couples are divorced but retain the same surname. Everybody seems pretty clear what the actual relationships are, and that surnames are a poor predictor of those relationships.
That's quite a different context, though. We have had centuries to
become familiar with the idea that if two things are in the same genus,
that we can typically assume they are more closely related to one
another than either is to something in a different genus. This implicit
grouping "algorithm" predates the development of phylogenetic theory;
all it requires is acknowledgment that species actually have
relationships to other species. To change the system so species we KNOW
are unrelated might still be grouped under the same generic name would
be extremely confusing to anyone outside of the experts on that group -
and do even worse damage to the public perception of taxonomy.
Yes, I know that as a Commissioner, I'm not exactly an unbiased observer
here (since the Code would have to be abandoned in order to achieve your
vision of leaving binomials untouched in perpetuity), but there is a
clear and significant utility to higher-rank taxonomic categories (they
convey information), and genus names are arguably the most crucial part
of that hierarchy.
Sincerely,
--
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology      Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314    skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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Roderic Page
Professor of Taxonomy
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