Taxonomic Swap 54648
(Committed on 2019-03-05)
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Comments
the good news is the new Taxon Framework infrastructure makes it so that we can keep track of deviations from a source such as MolluscaBase. The bad news its a lot of work to wire things up properly.
Looks like we have 1229 active iNat Bivalves with 'Relationship unknown' status https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/47584-Bivalvia/taxonomy_details
these are taxa that are in iNat, not in Molluscabase and not accounted for via deviations. Someone needs to go through these and make swaps (as I did here) or make deviations (e.g. Taxon Framework Relationships describing how we're deviating).
Do you think you could help sort out the 'relationship unknown's by swapping or deviating when necessary?
@musselboy could probably give us some good input on the unionid situation. These guys rarely disagree, although I'm sure publishing through Conchbooks probably ruffled a few feathers. I'm not sure that the other researchers disagree with Tom's assignments, they may just disagree with the publishing method. One other issue that seems (to me) to be unresolved is the Obovaria jacksoniana/ozarkensis synonymy. The most common areas for the "old" Obovaria jacksoniana were probably southeastern Oklahoma (Kiamichi drainage) and east Texas (Neches/Sabine drainage). These two drainage were omitted or ignored in the range listing for O. ozarkensis.
@loarie, sounds like quite a project. I haven't had a chance to sit down and figure out the new Taxon Framework system, but I might be able to chip away at this a little bit at a time. Any links/guidance would be appreciated. Would have been a good project back during the shutdown...
@dbarclay, the two malacologists that I have worked with in TN & KY both disagree with the new assignments in the Watters paper, not just the publication method, but perhaps they are outliers. I can check with the Fish & Wildlife mussel folks at NCTC. This FMCS list still shows Villosa, but perhaps they just haven't updated it yet.
Ya, the FMCS list is from 2016, so the 2018 publication wouldn't be included. I have no opinion on the new generic assignments, since that's fairly subjective and I'm no expert, but I do think his species splitting is correct, at least for the ones I've messed with. I had speculated that some of these were being over-lumped since I started examining them, and Tom broke them down pretty much like I would have guessed they would break down. Musselboy on iNat is Kevin Cummings, mussel expert with the Illinois Natural History Survey, and co-founder of MusselP along with Dan Graf. I'm not sure if Kevin and Dan follow Molluscabase's systematics for Unionoida, or if Molluscabase follows theirs, but I think Molluscabase follows their recommendations. That's why I said Kevin could probably give some good advice on the subject. If Molluscabase is going to be our standard for taxonomy, we should probably follow it unless/until someone publishes specific objections or revisions.
I'll chime in more later, but I would be happy to help update some of the nomenclature here. MolluscaBase (WORMS) is wrong on quite a few taxa(i.e Diplodon is a Hyriid not a Unionid). [damn saltwater folks working on freshwater animals :)]. I tried to look on this site to see how to suggest changes but I couldn't figure it out LOL. Just an FYI, I co-edited a new book on FW Mollusks of the World and hope to work with Philippe Bouchet and Rudiger Bieler at MolluscaBase/ WORMS to update their database. In the book we have a master table of 716 FW mollusk genera and higher taxonomy that runs about 10 pages. Use the code HTWN for 20% off.
https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/freshwater-mollusks-world/reviews
I've been suggesting changes by emailing info@marinespecies.org and they've been very responsive. Would be awesome to get MolluscaBase up-to-snuff for freshwater bivalves since there's so many advantages to having a single global reference
@loarie, I know that MolluscaBase is supposed to be the iNaturalist taxonomic standard for freshwater mussels; however, several malacologists I have spoken to in the southeast feel that the taxonomic changes proposed by Watters were prematurely accepted by MolluscaBase (the publication was not peer-reviewed, for a start).
@dbarclay, what's your take on this? I know that a while back I said that I was going to make all the Watters changes in the iNat taxonomy myself, but I stopped after speaking to some subject matter experts who fully accepted the Williams changes but thought that following Watters would be going way out on a limb.