Flag for Taxon: Genus Ochlerotatus
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dan_peach | Genus Ochlerotatus |
"Ochlerotatus has been reverted to subgeneric stuatus, with it's members reverting to the genus Aedes (Wilkerson et al 2015) |
May. 5, 2020 04:55:47 +0000 | ospr3y |
Ochlerotatus reinstated as subgenus of Aedes |
Comments
I've never done something like that, i don't wanna risk screwing a bunch of obs either.
If you can get the folks on BugGuide to change it, then there would be no reason for us not to, since we theoretically follow BG for Diptera by default.
Hi everyone,
Culicipedia: Species-group, genus-group and family-group names in Culicidae (Diptera) by Harbach (2018) follows reverting Ochlerotatus to sub-genus and reinstating Aedes and the genera level as well. This naming is also near universal in the scientific literature now too. Bugguide is just behind the times on this. Convention in the field, across the board, is to revert Ochlerotatus back to sub-genus.
Please let me know if I can be of further help!
For what it's worth, I have submitted a taxonomy change proposal for this taxon on BugGuide. Still haven't heard anything back from them.
However, Tony from iNaturalist support says we can use external sources other than BugGuide if the top identifiers of mosquitoes corroborate the validity of the sources.
Also tagging @culiseta @bcull53 @stephen169 @maureencoetzee @andrewrivera
Let me know what you guys think.
Well, that's great news!
Sure, I thought this was convention across the field for many years.
The paper by Wilkerson et al. (2015) lays out very clearly the reasons why Ochlerotatus and other Aedes subgenera should remain as subgenera. Harbach, who was one of the authors responsible for splitting Aedes into a huge number of different genera in the first place, subsequently retracted and, as said above, now uses the "old" nomenclature in both Culicipedia and Mosquito Taxonomic Inventory. There is no-one that I know of in the mosquito world who disagrees with Wilkerson. If iNat can be fixed (and Bugguide as well) that would be great.
Regards,
Maureen
Yes, I agree with this. The arguments made in the Wilkerson paper are very clear and seem common sense to me.
Thanks
I am in full support of this, I've been itching to suggest this change for a while. I'll get active on bugguide and back it there too if that helps.
Great. Seems there's enough support for this to go through. I'll get in touch with other curators to determine the best way to go about making this changes. Thanks y'all!
Only makes sense. Anyway, once the change is made, it automatically percolates through the system without our having to change all our observations.
All, I'm in the process of changing the mosquito taxonomy in iNat from Ochlerotatus back into Aedes but in order to do so, I needed to merge duplicate taxon pages from Aedes into Ochlerotatus, which is now taxonomically classified as a subgenus of Aedes in iNat. I need to make a few more changes so that the binomial name reflects the changes, so expect all Ochlerotatus species to revert to Aedes here in a while.
If you notice any Aedes being merged into Ochlerotatus, know this is intentional and will soon reflect current taxonomic updates as per Wilkerson et al. 2015.
Done! As soon as the changes kick in (might be a few hours), everything should be consistent with Wilkerson et al. 2015.
This is exciting. Thanks for doing this.
Nice job
Are the A. japonicus subspecies still in the process of changing or is this a bug? https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1112094-Aedes-japonicus
I will need to do a taxon swap for those as well. Didn't notice the child taxa didn't swap. I'll take care of that here soon.
Great job on the taxon change!
I'm looking to (finally) resolve this iNat taxonomy problem with Ochlerotatus/Aedes. Based on the Wilkerson et al. 2015 paper, corroborated with mosquitocatalog.org and mosquito-taxonomic-inventory.info, the two primary authorities on mosquito taxonomy, reinstating Ochlerotatus as a subgenus of Aedes is valid and according to @dan_peach generally accepted among mosquito scientists.
BugGuide hasn't updated its taxonomy to reflect these changes, but they don't really have many active mosquito users on there besides myself. I'm sure if I contact them they would make this change.
@megsquitophd @c-love @edanko @odhentomologist let me know if you have any input or agree/disagree with this.
I'm still new to the curator thing, but I think there's a way to make Ochlerotatus a subgenus of Aedes on iNat without screwing everything up. I can ask the experts in the curator forum or perhaps @zoology123 can help.
Cheers,
Liam