Flag for Taxon: Black-notched Bumble Bee (Bombus bifarius)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| chlorophilia | Black-notched Bumble Bee (Bombus bifarius) |
this taxon was recently split. See Ghisbain et al. 2020. I am not sure what the best way of approaching this change on iNat |
Jan. 25, 2020 07:46:32 +0000 | jonathan142 |
Atlases verified - committing split |
Comments
Here is a link to the paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/syen.12419
To follow the paper all "bifarius" on inat would become Bombus vancouverensis except those from the US states of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and Wyoming which would need to be treated as either or i.e. as "bifarius complex" until resolved. For Colorado can assume those from most of the state are B. bifarius (keep as bifarius) but should move those from NW Colorado to "bifarius complex"
IDs may have a bit of a lag to update (as there are 1029 to be updated) but should proceed automatically. If they don't update after a day or odd, there's been an ongoing issue where some swaps just aren't proceeding as intended that's being documented on the forums.
This is nuts. You ask people to accept a taxonomic split, but you cannot provide full access to the research paper for it???? You might as well preach a Mormon Gospel. If you can't provide the facts, that is just faith. Is it in the Bible?
Woah now, settle down @trientalid. Pay walls are not ideal, but they do not nullify scientific evidence.
As @johnascher mentions, this split would require designating separate atlases to delimit the ranges of the split taxa. I have not done this before. @loarie ?
how can I help?
There isnoreal point talking about a split, howeverreal it may be, if the practitioners do not have full access tothe information. Otherwise you are just asking however thousands of people to pay Wiley for.... what could be un- reviewed opinions. Any reference to a scientific journal should be “public access”. Any information which claims to be authoritative needs to be freely accessible to be openly reviewed. This is not “science”, even “citizen science” if the basis for that science hide behind a wall. Science does not come from above. It comes from inquisitiveness which we try to foster in responsible citizens. So, open access should be a required norm..... otherwise mightas well do painting bynumbers and science by fill in the blanks and train people to give theexpected answers..... Some push back is simply healthy.
These are not unreviewed opinions. I think the paper makes a good case for the split, citing a number of lines of convergent evidence. I appreciate your ideals. I am not a big fan of pay walls. But I do think you are rather over-reacting. Usually these papers can be sourced if you care to find them. I can send it to you if you want.
@loarie —Is there are a walkthrough on how to designate multiple atlases on iNat so that when a split is executed different taxa fall out based on their range? I have never done this. So a walk-through would be helpful. I have curatorial status but would generally leave a complex problem like this to others who are more acquainted with this process.
Hey @chlorophilia, I'll go ahead and answer the atlasing question. For the new species pages, you'll go to Curation → Create an Atlas (or use https://www.inaturalist.org/atlases/new - necessary if you're atlasing something above the species-level). I'll refer to the Atlases overview for those details. Then you'll just do a taxonomic split, selecting the input taxon and the output taxa. Re-assignment will occur based on the range data supplied.
So if Species A is split into B and C:
• areas only including B in the atlases will be updated to Species B
• areas only including species C will be updated to Species C
• areas including both species B and C will be updated to the lowest common taxon (complex here)
• areas including neither species B nor C will also be updated to the lowest common taxon
The same principles apply if there are more output taxa.
Hi @jonathan142 —thanks so much for the feedback. Much appreciated. I will try to carve out the time sometime soon to implement these changes.
It looks like the taxon split updates on affected IDs have been implemented via a search/replace? Example: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/31443765
Ghisbain et al. 2020 'Substantial genetic divergence and lack of recent gene
flow support cryptic speciation in a colour polymorphic
bumble bee (Bombus bifarius) species complex'