Taxacom: paper recommended by Thomas Pape

[Thomas McCabe]

Hello. Thanks to  Scott Thomson, Stephen Thorpe, Richard Pyle, and John
Grehan, who gave their answers here to my August 25 posted questions about
the paper ("Tightening the requirements for species diagnoses would help
integrate DNA-based descriptions in taxonomic practice", *PLoS Biol* 21(8):
e3002251) recommended on August 24 by Thomas Pape.

Richard, in his response, noted that section 13.1.1 of the current
International Code of Zoological Nomenclature stipulates that "...every new
name published after 1930 must... be accompanied by a description or
definition that states in words characters that are purported to
differentiate the taxon…." On the other hand, the concluding section of the
referenced paper (Section: "Our recommendation for future editions of Codes
of bionomenclature") states "We advocate an explicit requirement for
state-specific and contrastive diagnoses."   Doesn't section 13.1.1 of the
ICZN fulfill this requirement? I do not have access to the other codes, but
I wonder if they too contain such stipulations.

I am not a producer but a user of biological taxonomy, especially
microbiological species definitions. So I appreciate section 13.1.1 of the
ICZN.

Respectfully,

   Thomas McCabe