Flag for Taxon: Crows and Ravens (Genus Corvus)
| Content Author | Object | Flagger | Flag Created | Reason | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crows and Ravens (Genus Corvus) | kiwikiu | Mon, 06 Jan 2020 02:33:51 AM UTC |
I believe the American/Northwestern Crow complex should be added as an option to cover the area in which extensive hybridization occurs & it is near impossible to call an individual one species or the other, while also not being reasonable to ID as hybrid |
upupa-epops |
see comments |
Comments
"...[from] Washington and British Columbia ...many crows are best left unidentified to species, and instead better recorded as “American/Northwestern Crow”.'
@loarie Thoughts on this addition? Though it would unfortunately pull a good chunk of crows from being RG American (mostly along the Olympic Peninsula), it would also more accurately represent these individuals.
@loarie Please consider, especially given recent progression of our knowledge of this hybridization
The article in question is now peer reviewed and published in Molecular Ecology: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mec.15377
Sorry, just saw this - the two "species" are going to be lumped in the next eBird/Clements checklist update (following the lump in this year's AOS checklist supplement, which I think is supposed to be published some time this week), so at this point I'm not sure it's worth creating a complex that's only going to get a few months of use before being obsolete. Since observations can be research grade with genus-level IDs, for the time being I'd probably just ID crows in the PNW as Corvus and mark that the ID can't be improved in the data quality assessment (making them research-grade at genus level), then go through all the research-grade Corvus observations in the region and re-ID them as American Crow once the lump has occurred. Alternatively, IDing crows in any potential overlap zones as American Crow, though technically not representing Clements's current concept of American Crow, might provide more stability post-lump (since they'll remain American Crow afterwards). (I'd definitely welcome more thoughts on this though.)
Although maybe it would be useful given that Clements isn't updating this year... honestly not sure
No worries. I have been trying to "manage" Northwestern vs. American Crow IDs in Washington for a while now, so I'm sort of glad they've become one species again. Now it just becomes a question of hybrids and intergrades... So I'm a little scared, haha
Species have now been lumped
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/12/10/491654.full.pdf