Flag for Taxon: Mantises (Order Mantodea)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| william91803 | Mantises (Order Mantodea) |
Issues about taxon framework |
May. 7, 2020 16:44:27 +0000 | loarie |
see comments |
Comments
looping in some top Mantid IDers from the community @mantodea @seyesimoneandria @bruno_meriguet @matthew_connors @ferox_formicae @brianf @skiman1016 @chenhanlin @pablo_valero @manassas
As william91803 pointed out - we currently have a taxon framework for Mantids referencing Mantodea Species File Online Version 5.0/5.0 (MSF) https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48112/taxonomy_details
The advantage of this is that we can offload the majority of taxonomy issues to MSF rather than reinventing the wheel here. We also can make sure that we're all following the same taxonomic viewpoint as we make IDs rather than referencing different taxonomic points of view
Taxon Frameworks can accomodate minor deviations from the external reference. But if the deviations are too extensive they're too difficult to build and maintain. I'd also say taxon frameworks work best when the external references (e.g. MSF) are engaged and are responsive if asked about questions and errors. if thats the case, then william91803 could direct updates proposed by Schwarz & Roy in 2019 directly to MSF and it would be trivial for us to update here once MSF updates rather than spend lots of time constructing and maintaining deviations
Alternatively, if people don't like following MSF or think that getting it to a point where its usable would require more than a few deviations, I'd propose getting rid of the taxon framework and going back to a more 'wild west' approach as we have for most other insect orders like Coleoptera. The pros are that anyone can make any chance they like, the cons are that there's usually alot of confusion about what taxa mean, lots of time spent on iNat curating taxonomy, and usually the resulting product has a lot of duplicated alternative taxonomies which splits obs between multiple parallel taxonomies.
Curious what people think. I'm in favor of continuing to follow MSF while possibly entertaining a few deviations but mostly passing along taxonomy proposals to them. But I defer to the top Mantid identifiers on the site of which I'm not one
But yes william91803, while we have a taxon framework in place please don't make changes like this https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/75764 that curate away from the reference without doing the following:
1) first flag the taxon you want to curate away from (e.g. Xanthomantis if you want to discuss lumping Xanthomantis into Malayamantis). Describe your proposed deviation, mention some other members of the mantid community and wait a week or so
2) if no one takes issue with the proposal, then proceed with the taxon change but also create a 'deviation' to signal curators that in this case we're not following MSF.
For the changes you already committed, the only thing that needs to be done is making the deviations. I've created a flag here where you can retroactively describe the devotion(s) you had in mind when you made these changes https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/488869 so we can create a deviation properly reflecting the changes you made
Thanks!
It has become increasingly more evident as time goes by that the Mantodea Species File Online is egregiously antiquated. The framework itself was problematic at its inception and had significant flaws. But what is worse is that it has not been consistently updated or corrected since then. I receive dozens of papers per year and it seems that about 15% of them evoke a change on MSF. There does not seem to be any rationale for this, as subsequent papers by the same authors that were previously integrated are later overlooked. I would assume that this is simply a matter of data overload and that Stiewe/Otte have more pressing matters to contend with. In any event, I do not find that the modern taxonomic revisions currently being produced and published are adequately described as being mere deviations from MSF. Modern Mantodea taxonomy vs that found on MSF are apples and oranges at this point. There are massive areas of divergence throughout most of the taxa. Thus, it is my belief that MSF is too far gone and not worth having a plethora of patchwork deviations to cripple it along. There are times when you just have to buy a new tire instead of patching the old one. This is one of those times.
I would suggest the following:
1) Replace the external taxon framework of MSF with that of Schwarz & Roy (2019).
2) Publications post Schwarz & Roy that alter this framework should be reflected here at iNat, as to keep everything up to date.
3) Taxonomic changes should not be allowed unless they are specifically based upon a publication post Schwarz & Roy. Thus, there are no wild-west/personal opinion scenarios. If there is a noted disagreement within the published literature between authors, we can handle those situations on a case by case basis.
I usually receive papers just prior to or immediately upon their publication and I maintain personal communication with and/or personally know most modern Mantodea taxonomists. Thus, I can volunteer to update iNat as these new publications come out. But there would need to be a workable template in order to do this effectively. Correcting MSF would be too laborious. Adjusting Schwarz & Roy over time as new research develops would be the efficient approach. If someone could deep six the MSF framework and install the Schwarz & Roy framework in its place, I can certainly take it from there and keep it updated as we go.
~Kris
Hi @loarie. I personally prefer the system by Schwarz & Roy, 2019 more than MSF for it's more phylogeny-based, but as you said, following MSF would have easier management and curation of iNat. There is a problem I often encounter when identifying.
Take the so-called bark mantis for example: In MSF, most bark mantis genera and species are listed under the family Liturgusidae. However, it's obvious that bark mantises from different continents belong to different lineages. In the oriental region, there're also some genera having a closer relationship with oriental bark mantises phylogenetically with nymphs and some species sometimes indistinguishable since revisions still needed. Should I identify these observations as Liturgusidae or Amelini or something? That's the main reason why I want to update the iNat with the newest studies.
Since the taxa info of iNat is for identification, it seems that there's no need to be really serious on it, so I didn't really change the whole system but only dealing with the homonym of Xanthomantis, and apologize for any mess I made. If the final decision is to update the iNat taxa info, I can also help.
Chih-Ting
I thoroughly agree with a switch to Schwarz & Roy (2019) - MSF was a good start but it's just too far behind and has too many issues now. One potential issue is that Schwarz & Roy only deals with genus-level classification and there are a number of species-level changes that were not in MSF that also need to be dealt with (but hopefully that will be easy enough)
I do agree that the Schwarz ＆ Roy 2019 system is better than the system we have now, as it corrects a lot of mistakes in the current system on a family and subfamily level. However it is indeed quite a big change and should be carried out with care. I have notices, for example, with the publishing of genus Rhombomantis a few years ago that species like R.fusca and R.tectiformis were created as new species under Rhombomantis, but still exist under Rhombodera, which causes a lot of confusion. These problems should be taken care of carefully so that the system can function well enough to be practical. Another problem worth noting is, for example, under Schwarz ＆ Roy 2019, Paramantini is much smaller than it used to be, and observations classified under Paramantini in Asia right now should instead be put into Hierodulini, while African species still remain in Paramantini. This would require changes not only at a species level but on a much larger level. There are of course many other similar problems worth keeping an eye out for, some more unpractical than others, and it would require many identifiers to work collaboratively so that no such mistakes will occur.
I emailed Martin Stiewe at MSF to inform him that you all seem to be advising that we get rid of the taxon framework referencing MSF because it doesn't include the Schwarz ＆ Roy 2019. I'm fine with whatever you advise. But I would love it if MSF could just find a way to make the updates you guys require but I understand that they might not have the resources to make these changes
Martin Stiewe wrote that he's supportive of the Schwarz ＆ Roy 2019 changes but that these won't be live until 2021 -Should I just go ahead and remove the Mantid Taxon Framework until then so you guys can curate Mantids directly without worrying about mapping to Mantid Species Files?
I am willing to wait the six months or so to get MSF online up to date. If Stiewe has agreed to incorporate Schwarz & Roy than I suggest that we wait and have him do it. If, however, we're still having this same conversation next summer, then I say we go ahead and remove the framework. That being said, I still have two concerns about this. 1) there have been published changes to the taxonomy post Schwarz & Roy and I am aware of several papers by other authors that will soon be published to alter this latest taxonomy even further. Thus, even if Stiewe gets the framework up to date by 2021, it will likely be out of date the moment he updates it. Unless, of course, he incorporates the other changes at the same time. 2) Schwarz & Roy produced a schematic of generic systematics. Their paper is silent on species demarcations. So we're going to need a supplement to this framework either way it goes. There again, we could wait to see if Stiewe incorporates the recent species changes from other authors as well as the genera changes. It's a lot to keep up with.
Seemes like MSF has already been updated? How long would it take for the MSF changes to be seen here?
.... I just checked on a few random genera and did not find any of the needed changes.
Hmmmmm well the Australian groups have certainly been updated to their new places. I assume they're just changing things in sections?
I got a note from Martin Stiewe that "Mantodea Species File is now fully updated towards the new Schwarz and Roy classification." and I updated iNat to reflect those changes. We still have 6 deviations and 7 outstanding flags https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48112-Mantodea/taxonomy_details
will people take a look at where Mantid taxonomy stands now on iNat/MSF and decide whether this is adequate (or can be adequate with a few more strategic deviations) or whether MSF is still too far from the mantid taxonomy you'd like to see
Thanks @loarie, looks pretty good. The only problem I have is that the new taxonomy has been mapped from the old directly from names rather than from the taxa themselves, so many higher-level identifications are now incorrect (hope that makes sense). This seems to be especially true for large groups like Mantidae or Mantinae which are now used in quite a different sense than they were previously.
A simple example is in NZ - they have two mantis species (Orthodera novaezealandiae and Miomantis caffra), both of which used to be in the family Mantidae. Anyone who couldn't tell the species apart usually IDed as "Mantidae" and there are often a fair few of these before someone suggested a species. Now that M. caffra has been transferred out of Mantidae (along with almost the whole subfamily), any ID of "Mantidae" on a sighting of M. caffra is now both incorrect and disagreeing with the species ID.
A mapping of the previous Mantidae onto a higher-level taxon would solve this problem but would probably be very tedious to do for every major group unless we have some easy reference point. So.... a problem, but not with an easy solution that I can see.
@matthew_connors This is the same problem I was referring to, but unless we have a mechanism to swap taxon within a defined space only, there seems to be no good way to solve the problem. Many observations in Asia has this same problem, previously identified as Paramantini because we could not tell if it was Hierodula or Rhombodera, but within the new framework it should be Hierodulini. If anyone can suggest a way to do localized taxon swaps it would be greatly appreciated, or we would just have to do it the hard way.
Yep exactly!
It would appear that the entire systematic framework of Mantodea on iNat needs to be reconstructed from scratch, rather than patchworking it together. I have no idea how much labor/time that would require but that would resolve the problems. At least with the upper level taxonomy. There are still a few species-level problems with MSF but it looks like these are minor in comparison to the problems noted above.
Overall, I would say that it's a solid improvement but there's still much work to be done. It looks like MSF is updated enough to continue to be useful but now the problem is on the iNat end, as noted by @matthew_connors and @chenhanlin
Thanks folks - I understand the issue described (e.g Mantidae no longer meaning the same thing it meant before). The solution would be to retroactively split these taxa (search 'retroactively split' here https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/how+taxon+changes+work). ie create a new inactive Mantidae (interpreted as sensu stricto) and then create a taxon split from the old Mantidae (iterpreted as sensu lato) to the narrower Mantidae and whatever other taxa were carved off from it (e.g. Miomantinae). What this would do is make any IDs of the input (e.g. Mantidae) non-current and replace them with IDs of the common ancestor. Not great because it really will just coarsen alot of obs and will create some disruption but may be worth it if the interpretation of a lot of IDs are changed. For branches where the higher taxonomy is more stable (e.g. birds), I'm usually very careful to split groups where the meaning changed (e.g. narrowed because something was carved off), but frankly here there was just to much going on for me to keep track. But we can always retroactively spit if there are specific cases that are problems now
I assume all good here so I'll close? Please reopen if still issues
Not sure if this is the best place to bring it up but I came across an issue with the higher-level taxonomy today that needs to be changed on both iNat and MSF - Spinomantodea and Schizomantodea are listed as sisters when they should be nested within each other (MSF). Going by Schwarz & Roy (2019), Spinomantodea and Chaeteesoidea are sisters within Eumantodea, and then Schizomantodea and Mantoidoidea are sisters within Spinomantodea. Everything lower than that looks correct from what I can see
would you be willing to ping Martin Stiewe @ MSF and see if thats on their radar and get a time estimate?
Yeah can do
I added a link to this discussion to the taxon framework page for this order so people can find it to continue this discussion https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/48112-Mantodea/taxonomy_details
but for now I'll close this flag since there's no urgent todo
Earlier a curator notified me that there are about 51 relationship-unknown counts in the taxon framework of Mantodea. On the other hand, since the Mantodea Species File Online Version 5.0/5.0 has been out of date, I'm trying to update the iNat taxa info of Mantodea, including new taxa, new comb., and the new system proposed by Schwarz & Roy in 2019. I'm not familiar with the framework job. May I ask you how to curate the taxon framework of the Mantodea? Thanks in advance