Flag for Taxon: Ceratiomyxa porioides
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| weedsky | Ceratiomyxa porioides |
Which should be used, Ceratiomyxa porioides or Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa var. porioides? |
Jun. 27, 2020 08:23:00 +0000 | nschwab |
Kept Ceratiomyxa porioides |
Comments
This is the most authoritative source. Looks like all Ceratiomyxa spp are considered C. fruticulosa.
https://eumycetozoa.com/data/list.php?busca=ceratiomyxa&por=gensi
nomen.eumycetozoa.com is a great source of information but I would personally be more careful about the merge. It's true that many authors consider all these varieties as a single species named Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa but at the moment not phylogenetic investigation has been published.
Moreover, varieties are often considered as nomenclatural synonyms in these databases. It seems to be the case here as I couldn't find any variety considered as 'valid'. I think these varieties are still meaningful
At the moment many authors also still consider Ceratiomyxa porioides as a good species, others consider it as a variety of C. fruticulosa and some synonymize it with the last species.
I would advise not to merge these varieties into Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa for the moment and wait until a study about them is published. I see that Ceratiomyxa porioides and Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa var. porioides are both present in the database. It would be good to see one merged into the other. My preference would be to keep the variety rank.
I agree, my preference would also be to retain the variety until more work has been published.
I think these problems will occur with more myxomycete taxa. For instance, I have been misidentifying a Trichia at my study site T. decipiens. Dr Carlos Lado advised that it is T. crateriformis but he also told me that the species has recently been renamed T. meylanii. He commented that the entire group needs complete revision.
Another example is the Lycogala complex. A recent paper by Dr Dmitry Leontyev et al has identified 21 morphotypes based on the structure of the peridium. It is likely that these varieties will warrant species rank.
Yes clearly there are a lot of taxonomic problems in myxomycete taxa. Higher clades are not even clearly defined and many genera need to be created.
About the Ceratiomyxa case I can't believe it's the same species all around the world with all these differences in morphology. I'm sure there are many species waiting to be described. We'll need to wait.
To avoid duplicates I will swap Ceratiomyxa fruticulosa var. porioides into Ceratiomyxa porioides. It's clearly a complex given the preliminary genetic studies but as of now we can't circumscribe morphospecies correctly. Best we can do is using traditional names and keeping the identifications the most precise possible.
@sarahlloyd what are your thoughts? I am having a hard time finding a modern taxonomic treatment.