Flagger Content Author Content Reason Flag Created Resolved by Resolution
bouteloua Genus Anthothoe

taxonomic issue

Mar. 8, 2021 16:11:06 +0000 Not Resolved

Comments

@joe_fish says:

The type species, A. stimpsonii, is described from South Africa. Earlier morphological studies synonymized it with a species from South America, A. chilensis, but more recent genetic evidence argues against that (both are considered valid in WoRMS).

The problem is that there are 200+ observations on here that identify South African specimens under the wrong name, as well as a handful of observations that correctly identify these as A. stimpsonii. It’s obviously not beneficial to have both names in use for this region, but how does one correct 200+ misidentifications?

Posted by bouteloua about 3 years ago

I don't see any previous taxon changes on iNaturalist for A. simpsonii or A. chilensis. Anthothoe stimpsonii has been accepted on iNaturalist since March 2018. Is a taxon change actually needed, or is identification sufficient? Sounds late to do a split if both have already been accepted here for 3 years.

fyi @tony_wills @clinton @predomalpha

Posted by bouteloua about 3 years ago

A taxon change to correct mis-identification isn't an appropriate mechanism, correcting a few hundred observation IDs is a relatively trivial exercise if you can persuade enough people that it is needed.

Posted by tony_wills about 3 years ago

yeah, this is more of a reinterpretation of the taxa. if there were a way to split an existing taxon into another existing taxon via biogeography, that would be the ideal solution. nobody wants to go through 200+ observations and tediously add new IDs... then check to see which ones need more IDs... then tag enough people to switch the ID. it's especially tedious with some of these South African observations that migrated over from ispotnature... those can have numerous IDs from non-active users that have to be outvoted.

Posted by joe_fish about 3 years ago

@joe_fish I note that on many A. simpsonii observations you have withdrawn your ID, and suggested we just ID to genus, is that how best to proceed?

@pbsouthwood, @seastung, @phelsumas4life, @tonyrebelo as the main identifiers of these South African observations, do you want to help changing IDs when we come to a decision on which way to go?

Posted by tony_wills about 3 years ago

Do a split based on geography. No help will be needed.
It is not true that these are misidentifications. This was a taxonomic issue that was solved taxonomically. So a split is precisely the correct way to resolve this issue on iNat.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

All IDs that migrated from iSpot have active (at least at the time) users on iNaturalist. No IDs by non-iNaturalist users were imported from iSpot - they were all summarized and incorporated into a single comment.
So that discussion is irrelevant - the claimed issue never happened.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

@tonyrebelo so you're suggesting we just do a taxonomic split of South African A. chilensis to A. simpsonii ? (or could/should we move them to genus instead?)

Posted by tony_wills about 3 years ago

Why would you move them to genus?

A chilensis in Africa is A. simpsonii - there is no ambiguity. Moving them to genus is silly, as they will then have to be identified again as A. simpsonii. You may as well do it all manually! I dont understand why this is even being contemplated!
A chilensis (senso lato) in South America should be moved to A. chilensis (a different taxon - senso stricto).
It is a simple split.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

Here is how to do it!!
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/89926

My only issue is that 22 observations fall outside of the country limit for South Africa, and I dont know how to add the South Atlantic (or southern Africa) to catch them.
I dont know how many observations of the nominate taxon are offshore in South America.

@loarie - why do Atlasses not cater for marine species?

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

we haven't gotten round to creating marine atlases

Posted by loarie about 3 years ago

Well then we may as well commit the change??
I presume the 20+ observations outside of the two species atlas regions will go to genus level and will need to be identified manually.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

the 22 observations from the SW Atlantic are thought to be an undescribed species, so it'd be fine if those end up at genus-level

Posted by joe_fish about 3 years ago

OK: will commit.

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago

So the South African observations have gotten bumped to genus-level. These need to be reidentified as A. stimpsonii.

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/identify?taxon_id=379605&place_id=6986&lrank=genus

Posted by joe_fish about 3 years ago

This taxonomic split (https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_splits/89926) did not happen correctly. I am hoping that it can be fixed. Instead of moving from Anthothoe chilensis to Anthothoe stimpsonii it got moved to the genus - apparently due to a bug. Waiting from clarification from the programmers ....

Posted by tonyrebelo about 3 years ago
Posted by loarie about 3 years ago

Add a Comment

Sign In or Sign Up to add comments