Flagger Content Author Content Reason Flag Created Resolved by Resolution
edanko upupa-epops Fourspot Sedgesitter (Pyrophaena rosarum)

sometimes included in Platycheirus

May. 19, 2020 23:07:55 +0000 upupa-epops

see comments

Comments

@upupa-epops what's the right thing here?

Posted by edanko almost 4 years ago

it's on its own here, but not in Skevington:
http://syrphidae.myspecies.info/taxonomy/term/110

Posted by edanko almost 4 years ago

Hmm iNat generally follows BugGuide but I don't know what is the more up-to-date taxonomy. https://bugguide.net/node/view/739059/bgpage
By the way, what do you think about having the Platycheirus species groups from the book as complexes? https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/large-genera-with-formal-species-groups/11073

Posted by upupa-epops almost 4 years ago

That seems like a long thread--what's the conclusion? Do we use species groups and call them complexes, or are they their own part of the taxonomy? Yes, I think those must be synonyms. It'd be nice to use the Platycheirus groups except that I'm not sure we would know how to assign species from outside the northeast, and the field guide often takes controversial taxonomic stances....

Posted by edanko almost 4 years ago

Yeah opinions were divided with some calling for a new taxon level of "species group" somewhere between subgenus and species, but currently the recommendation seems to be to use the "complex" level for that purpose.

This paper discusses the species groups in detail for all of the US and Canada (species lists begin page 16), they seem to be pretty well established: https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4082.1.1
It also considers Pyrophaena synonymous for now but could be split in the future.

Posted by upupa-epops almost 4 years ago

That's a neat paper! @treegrow @johnklymko do you see any issues?

Posted by edanko almost 4 years ago

I'm not sure what your question is exactly. My preference would be to use Platycheirus for rosarum and granditarsis, but it doesn't really matter as long as there's just one "iNat species" per taxon. With regards to adding species groups to iNat, I don't have a strong opinion. My primary interest is records that can be identified to species, so I'm not concerned with how less precise records are sorted.

Posted by johnklymko almost 4 years ago

I think iNat tries to follow BugGuide, and this seems enough of a status quo. My preference is also Platycheirus, but since as John points out 'it doesn't really matter' I think we should keep it. @upupa-epops I think adding the groups as complexes seems like a fine idea, but my instinct would be to hold off until you actually have an observation for which you can ID the complex but not the species....some Platycheirus groups aren't IDable from photos, I think.

Posted by edanko almost 4 years ago

Sounds good

Posted by upupa-epops almost 4 years ago

Sounds like we should keep it

Posted by edanko almost 4 years ago

Add a Comment

Sign In or Sign Up to add comments