Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
oleg_kosterin | Enallagma risi |
The community name Enallagma cyathigerum ssp. risi should be merged with this, for they are the same taxon in different ranks. |
Nov. 10, 2021 10:23:18 +0000 | zebs |
Thanks I swapped Enallagma cyathigerum ssp. risi into Enallagma risi
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/101399
WOL doesn't include ssp so its not easy to find situations like this where a ssp gets elevated to a species
Do we need to split Enallagma cyathigerum? This would be the case if there are alot of existing IDs of Enallagma cyathigerum that used to agree with IDs of Enallagma cyathigerum ssp. risi but are now clashing with/disagreeing with IDs of Enallagma risi. If not, great.
But if so - can cyathigerum and risi be separated based on range?
This is true that many observations of E. risi are currently hidden under E. cyathigerum. They can be identified by range indeed but unfortunately not by the appearance. But the ranges are intricate and in some areas biogeographically unexpected, with the border almost entirely in Russia. Central Asia, Kazakhstan, South Siberia and the steppe zone of SE European Russia are occupied by E. risi, while the taiga zone of Siberia and the Far East and most of the Europaean Russia - by E. cyathigerum. For some reason, West and Central Northern Caucasus are occupied by E. risi while East Caucasus by E. cyathigerum,. counter to ecological expectations. It seems that we are going to 'manually' reidentify some observaions based by range. Some hidden E. risi will unevitably remain under E. cyathigerum, but this this would not be too bad, since the two taxa actually are 'nearly subspecies' (or true subspecies). The situation was 'milder' when risi was here a subspecies of E. cyathigerum (as I prefer to consider it by myself), but is still tolerable now.
@oleg_kosterin - can you raise the issue you messaged me here so others can follow along? I'll link to this flag from the taxon change I committed lumping E. risi into E. cyathigerum as dictated by WOL
Synonymisation of Enallagma risi to E. cyathigerum is correct at the species level and based on the corresponding change in the World Odonata List (WOL). I should say that the change followed my recently published paper in Odonatologica:
Kosterin O.E. Reconsideration of three Odonata taxa described by A.N. Bartenev from the same place in West Caucasus, Odonatologica 52(1-2), 89-126, (1 June 2023). https://doi.org/10.5281/odon.v52i1-2.a7
There I downgraded the taxon known as Enallagma risi once again to a subspecies but also had to change its name to the priority one:
Enallagma risi rotundatum
I am sure that some odonatologists will not accept the subspecific rank of this taxon because of their somewhat different species concept (but will have to accept the name change). So, if it is not too late, it' better to save this taxon as a subspecies, but with the above mentionednam:
The old name - Enallagma risi -> to the new name - Enallagma cyathigerum rotundatum.
Tthere is an imporftant thing concerning WOL - it lists taxa only at the species level and above, and principally does not concrn subspecies, mentioning them as synonyms. (Here is the citation from their introduction: "We have not recognized any subspecies of Odonata. Instead, we have listed all named subspecies as synonyms of the species under which they were named. We are not able to judge the validity of these subspecies, and as many of them have been questioned, we chose to treat them all in the same fashion"). This important circumstance is often overlooked even by some odonatologists, who assume all those synonyms as true synonims at all ranks
At the same time iNaturalist does assumes synonyms and fortunately many of those in Odonata (in spite of their presentation in WOL).
I also checked which subspecies of Enallagma cyathigerum are currently active in iNaturalist. Besides the nominotypical E. cyathigerum cyathigerum, there are two which are actually synonyms even at the subspecific level . The would be ideally swapped but comprise no problem as nobody naturally identify observations with them.
E cyathigerum mongolicum is a synonym of E. cyathigerum rotundatum
(this synonymy was published many times, the last time in the same paper mentioned above)
E. cyathigerum antiquum is a synonym of E. cyathigerum cyathigerum
(published rather implicitly, without special focus)
There were two names Enallagma risi proposed:
Enallagma risi Schmidt, 1961
Enallagma risi Pinhey, 1962
Both were mentioned in the previous versions of World Odonata List (WOL) as synonyms, the former of Enallagma cyathigerum, the latter of Pinheyagrion angolicum. The latter synonymy is doubtless. The former resulted from the fact that WOL does not concern any subspecies and list all them as synonyms at the species rank, so they treated E. cyathigerum risi as 'a synonym'. The current WOL version recognises Enallagma risi Schmidt, 1961 as a full species, and I suppose that this recently appeared community name Enallagma risi refers to the taxon described by Schmidt (not that by Pinhey). This is the same as the community name Enallagma cyathigerum ssp. risi
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1103429-Enallagma-cyathigerum-risi
the same taxon considered in two alternative ranks, species or subspecies, Hence it worth merging E. c. risi to E. risi (this taxon).
Actually these two taxa are at the border of species and subspecies - they well differ structurally (unfortunately not recognsable by photos, that would be important here) and exclude each other geographically as vicariant species. But there are populations exhibiting transitory characters at the zone of their contacts in Altai Mts, Tuva, Ural Mts and even Moscow. For this formal reason I prefer to treat them as subspecies (as currently in iNaturalist). But here in iNaturalist, it would be safer to keep them as different species and hence tocorrespond to WOL.