[Taxacom] GENERAL CALL TO BATTLE

Fri Feb 12 08:17:44 CST 2021

"What inflammatory rhetoric is: Claiming that 15 species are new when they have not been diagnosed from 51 previous species."

Hi Carlos,

Sharkey et al. (2021) reply to this accusation on p. 6-7:

1. “The method ignores previously described species”

This is not true, not for the Meierotto et al. (2019a) paper and not for 
the present paper.

In the Meierotto et al. (2019a) paper there was a clear statement that 
coauthor Sharkey
had seen all of the relevant types and that in his opinion none of the 
species treated were
conspecific with these except for Zelomorpha arizonensis. The critics 
suggest that evidence
be given to demonstrate that Sharkey had seen the types. Are they asking 
for letters from
curators of the museums that Sharkey visited, or did they simply 
overlook the statement?
Impossible to tell, and way beyond standard taxonomic practice by 
well-established authorities
for a major group of insects. Perhaps they ignored another paper by 
Meierotto
et al. (2019b) in which the presently recognized species of Zelomorpha 
and Hemichoma
were established by creating dozens of new combinations. Clearly, one of 
the authors (i.e.,
MJS) of this latter paper must have viewed the type species, as stated 
in the paper. In this
taxonomically broader treatment also, we have reviewed all of the 
relevant literature and
found a number of previously described species that are mentioned where 
appropriate.

End of citation

So it seems that there is actually an agreement to take previously 
described species into account!

Cheers

Martin

Am 12.02.2021 um 14:54 schrieb Carlos Alberto Martínez Muñoz via Taxacom:
> Hi Mike,
> I do not see that "can we move to a more efficient model of getting
> understudied taxa described in a revolutionary way" and "should we modify
> time-tested methods of the last 250 years to achieve the same goal
> instead?" are opposite. To me they look complementary and desirable. May
> you want to bring in your views and expertise, please let me know.
> What inflammatory rhetoric is: Claiming that 15 species are new when they
> have not been diagnosed from 51 previous species.
>
> For those of you who missed it:
> I did not start this war aimed at overriding the Code and overwriting our
> animal names. Those were Paul Herbert, Daniel Janzen, and Michael Sharkey,
> long ago. Again, I did not start this war, but I do plan to finish it.
> Therefore the call to battle. If the wording of my call worries any of you
> more than what will happen if we fail to stop the ongoing nomenclatural
> vandalism, then you are missing how dangerous the situation is. Of course,
> there will be many who are at the end of their careers, who won't care
> about integrative taxonomy having a chance, and who won't care about
> present and future integrative taxonomists having to mop the large-scale
> synonymy disaster left behind by molecular vandals. If you are fine with
> having millions of new molecular synonyms, then you are part of the problem.
>
> Kind regards,
> Carlos
>
> Carlos A. Martínez Muñoz
> Zoological Museum, Biodiversity Unit
> FI-20014 University of Turku
> Finland
> Myriatrix <http://myriatrix.myspecies.info/>
> ResearchGate profile
> <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Martinez-Munoz>
> Myriapod Morphology and Evolution
> <https://www.facebook.com/groups/205802113162102/>
>
>
>
>
> El jue, 11 feb 2021 a las 11:13, Stephen Thorpe (<stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>)
> escribió:
>
>> Carlos,
>> Just to clarify, I think we agree that barcodes alone should never be used
>> to define new (or non-new) taxa. However, I do see a valid place for
>> minimalist morphological descriptions. For many beetle taxa, for example,
>> an illustration (photo or drawing) of the male genitalia is quite
>> sufficient to identify the species. Nobody ever reads the full description
>> of the whole organism. It isn't the end of the world if someone eventually
>> finds that two distinct species have identical genitalia. You just attach
>> the name to one of those species and describe the other as new. Where's the
>> problem?
>> Cheers,
>> Stephen
>> On Thursday, 11 February 2021, 03:23:25 pm NZDT, Carlos Alberto Martínez
>> Muñoz via Taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> Dear John,
>> Thank you for your valuable opinion. Part of the problem here is that the
>> proposed names are being considered valid under the ZooCode. I have no
>> problem with molecular species getting binomial names, just NOT under the
>> ZooCode when they fail to be diagnosed from previous species. Molecular
>> geneticists are most welcome to use binomial names, but those shall not be
>> considered Code-compliant. The honor of proposing the final name shall be
>> for those who actually connect the sequences to the existing corpus of 250+
>> years of morphological knowledge, something that Meierotto et al. (2019)
>> did not achieve. For example, they just differentiated their 15 new
>> molecular Zelomorpha species from one out of 52 previous morphological
>> species. Therefore, claims of priority such as "Zelomorpha angelsolisi
>> Meierotto, sp. nov." would have not been considered publishable by someone
>> applying kindergarten-level logic. This failed to happen and they were
>> published. Despite the previous outcry and even a reply paper, this
>> community and the Commission failed to stop them. Therefore, the only thing
>> left is to stand together and fight back on our own. The Commission
>> promised decades ago that the ZooCode would not fall as long as we defended
>> it. We still defend it!
>> Kind regards,
>> Carlos
>>
>> Carlos A. Martínez Muñoz
>> Zoological Museum, Biodiversity Unit
>> FI-20014 University of Turku
>> Finland
>> Myriatrix <http://myriatrix.myspecies.info/>
>> ResearchGate profile
>> <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Martinez-Munoz>
>> Myriapod Morphology and Evolution
>> <https://www.facebook.com/groups/205802113162102/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> El mié, 10 feb 2021 a las 19:28, John Grehan (<calabar.john at gmail.com>)
>> escribió:
>>
>>
>>> My understanding that the code is just an informal agreement, not an
>>> imposed law. Taxonomists are at liberty to follow it or not. Same for
>>> journals. At least some journals require code conformity, but others
>>> apparently do not. I have no problem in principle with the idea of
>>> published objections being made to procedures used in the papers cited,
>> but
>>> there is no threat of 'overthrow' of the code in the sense of imposing an
>>> alternative set of conditions. If some want to publish that bypass some
>>> (all?) of the current code then there is nothing to stop that unless
>>> journals object. At least that is my impression.
>>>
>>> John Grehan
>>>
>>> On Wed, Feb 10, 2021 at 12:06 PM Carlos Alberto Martínez Muñoz via
>> Taxacom
>>> <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>>   ***GENERAL CALL TO BATTLE***
>>>> Calling all Zoological Taxonomists to Battle!
>>>> Dear friends and colleagues,
>>>> We are going to need as much help as possible to fight the attempts of
>>>> Michael Sharkey, Daniel Janzen, Paul Herbert, and others to override the
>>>> ZooCode and to overwrite 250+ years of Zoological Taxonomy.
>>>> If you are willing to contribute your arguments and expertise to a
>>>> response
>>>> paper, please contact me.
>>>> Those of you who might not be aware of this serious issue, please check:
>>>> 1) Meierotto et al. (2019): A revolutionary protocol to describe
>>>> understudied hyperdiverse taxa and overcome the taxonomic impediment.
>>>> Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift, 66 (2): 119-145.
>>>> https://doi.org/10.3897/dez.66.34683
>>>> 2) Sharkey et al. (2021): Minimalist revision and description of 403 new
>>>> species in 11 subfamilies of Costa Rican braconid parasitoid wasps,
>>>> including host records for 219 species. ZooKeys, 1013: 1-665.
>>>> https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1013.55600
>>>> See also a reply to Meierotto et al. (2019):
>>>> 3) Zamani et al. (2021): The omission of critical data in the pursuit of
>>>> ‘revolutionary’ methods to accelerate the description of species.
>>>> Systematic Entomology, 46: 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1111/syen.12444
>>>> We need as much help as possible! Please, share widely and invite others
>>>> to
>>>> contribute! Let this be the hour when we draw swords together!
>>>>
>>>> Carlos A. Martínez Muñoz
>>>> Zoological Museum, Biodiversity Unit
>>>> FI-20014 University of Turku
>>>> Finland
>>>> Myriatrix <http://myriatrix.myspecies.info/>
>>>> ResearchGate profile
>>>> <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carlos_Martinez-Munoz>
>>>> Myriapod Morphology and Evolution
>>>> <https://www.facebook.com/groups/205802113162102/>
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>>>> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for about 34 years,
>> 1987-2021.
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>> Nurturing nuance while assaulting ambiguity for about 34 years, 1987-2021.
>>
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-- 
Dr. Martin Wiemers
Head of Ecology
Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut
Eberswalder Str. 90
15374 Müncheberg
Germany
Tel. +49 33432 73698-3740
e-mail: martin.wiemers at senckenberg.de
www.senckenberg.de/martin-wiemers