[Taxacom] Two million molecular synonyms on the way

[Carlos Alberto Martínez Muñoz]

Dear Taxacomers,
After many, many emails, here are some final messages which I will have to
transmit to the myriapodological community tomorrow. I will let my
colleagues know that our Myriapoda community should:
1) Be prepared to take the hit of at least 20 000 new molecular synonyms
over the next ten years.
2) Additionally expect the vast majority of the truly new species to be
named at an industrial scale from molecular data only, by barcoders and not
by our experts.
3) Stop worrying about comparing our new species to known species, given
that in the opinion of the Commission such comparison is not necessary.
4) Forget about complying with the Code, given that we are a scientific
community and that in the opinion of the Commission the Code is not a
scientific standard.

You may use this email as a template to announce the same to your
communities. You just need to change the expected number of new synonyms to
match the number of valid species your communities deal with. The
combination of global barcoding projects such as BIOSCAN, and the
understanding that there is no need to compare "new" molecular species with
current morphological species, will certainly generate one new molecular
synonym per each valid morphological species. Two million valid species?
Two million molecular synonyms!

Cheers!


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/>