Flag for Taxon: yellow foxtail (Setaria pumila)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bouteloua | yellow foxtail (Setaria pumila) |
treated as Setaria helvola in POWO, please discuss before swapping |
Sep. 3, 2018 01:47:19 +0000 | bouteloua |
S. pumila now accepted in POWO |
Comments
This swap just happened, was there ever a discussion?
no, there was no discussion.
Also accepted as Setaria pumila in The Plant List (http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl1.1/record/kew-442645),
WSSA Composite List of Weeds (http://wssa.net/wssa/weed/composite-list-of-weeds/),
ITIS (https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=505192#null),
to name a few.
Something has gone really wrong with this taxon. Currently we have:
The old "S. pumila" taxon is inactive:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48688-Setaria-pumila
And all records are now under this active taxon:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/900845-Setaria-pumila
There is a different, active "S. pumila" taxon, with alternate name "S. helvola"
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/900845-Setaria-pumila
There are three subspecies under S. helvola, but they are still named S. pumila:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/413222-Setaria-pumila-pallide-fusca
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/181898-Setaria-pumila-pallidefusca
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/80195-Setaria-pumila-pumila
Two of those subspecies are the same with different spellings.
I don't know the best way out of this mess.
@bouteloua @cmcheatle I don't have the experience to be confident what the best way to fix this is.
No source listed above accepts any of the subspecies, whether they call it pumila or helvola. Is it as simple as a merge of taxa 900845, 413222, 181898 and 80195 (the extra S. pumila taxon, and all the subspecies) into 922290 (the proper active taxon for S. helvola)?
I requested staff manually reverse the species swap to allow us to have a discussion as to whether it should even be committed in the first place: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/60855 but they have decided not to do so.
I emailed POWO on 26 August 2019 to request additional information as to why they synonymize S. pumila. I haven't myself looked into the taxonomy at all (including the subspecies).
For some background on this flag, in the fall of 2018 I preemptively flagged observose plant taxa that "disagreed" with POWO in order to prevent disruptive changes based on POWO being out-of-date, wrong, and/or to give the opportunity for the iNat community to discuss and decide to deviate, but that unfortunately did not happen before the taxon change was committed.
Ok sounds good. In the meantime I have swapped the extra S. pumila taxon into this one so we don't have two taxa for the same concept. https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/900845-Setaria-pumila
Folks, I haven't read this thread in detail, but Cassi wants me to roll back this change while you all figure out what you want to do. Is that what the rest of you want? This will touch 1000+ observations, which is a lot given the possibility that you might decide this change is, in fact, something you want to keep. Can at least one other person here confirm that you want to revert that change while things get figured out?
I think this is a "non-disruptive" change, in the sense that its a 1:1 name change, not a case where any information has been lost. Meaning it can be easily reversed with another taxon swap. Unless, I'm wrong about that, not sure what the point of reversing the change is.
As for the actual question here, I cannot find any indication that the two names have ever been used to refer to different concepts. If anyone can understand Latin to some degree, here are the original species descriptions.
S. helvola is described on page 491 (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/15268#page/499/mode/1up)
S. pumila is described as an addendum on page 891, making reference back to S. helvola and S. glauca.
It seems that the name S. helvola should have priortiy over S. pumila. What I don't understand is why S. glauca is not in current use. All of the subspecies of S. glauca available on POWO are treated as synonyms of various species described later than S. glauca (described 1812). I don't understand how this is possible under the rules of priority.
I meant disruptive as in causing back and forth taxon changes and pointless IDs cluttering up observations.
Rafael got back to me and it will be accepted as Setaria pumila in the next refresh of POWO.
Ok, if POWO is not going to support https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/60855, should I roll that back?
Fine with me. But make sure it isn't going to screw something up in relation to the other taxon swap (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/61576) that swapped an extraneous copy of S. pumila into S. helvola.
Ok, reversion of https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/60855 is in progress, will take a few hours to complete.
Thanks Ken-ichi. I manually removed all the common names, scientific name synonyms, conservation statuses, and many of the establishment means / taxon listings, but there are over a hundred more that need to be removed: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/922290-Setaria-helvola I am working on reidentifications of the currently ~60 observations filed under S. helvola.
Setaria helvola is now listed as a synonym of Setaria italica in POWO: http://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:421590-1
Since everyone who made those IDs meant Setaria pumila, it might be best to just drop/inactivate it rather than swap it into Setaria italica...
Accepted as Setaria pumila in GrassBase, unclear why POWO calls it S. helvola.