Flag for Taxon: Complex Pluteus cervinus
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| nschwab | pulk | Complex Pluteus cervinus |
no downstream taxa included |
Apr. 19, 2022 21:27:07 +0000 | loarie |
Comments
This was a mistake. There are many species in P. sect. Pluteus beyond the P. cervinus group. http://dx.doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.180.1.1
@pulk please make sure before adding complexes:
1) there's a clear need for them, a rule of thumb I like is if there's more than 10 times as many IDs sitting at a node (like genus) than any species downstream of the node (e.g. a species) and you think adding the complex between the genus and a small set of species will move a significant number of those obs sitting at genus forward to the complex. Thats not the case here as there are around 15k obs beneath https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/60782-Pluteus-cervinus vs only 22k beneath https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1366821-Pluteus
2) the complex contains the species they are a complex of (e.g. Complex Pluteus cervinus should contain Species Pluteus cervinus) and is not sibling to it
3) the complex contains more than one species
Looks like none of these 3 criteria are met by https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1366816-Pluteus-cervinus
(1) Strongly disagree to the point of being surprised/confused by your comment - any "real" taxon that would help clarify even a single observation should be added! I can't wrap my head around the utility of an iNat that's just "a few of our most popular names". The site should reflect accepted usage in modern taxonomy.
I put "real" in quotes because it does admittedly become less black-and-white with groups/complexes, which are outside formal nomenclature and could theoretically be more ambiguous than useful (I've rarely seen this in mushrooms, though). In this case, the P. cervinus complex is unusually well-delimited, with a paper on the section distinguishing it as one particular clade.
(2) Adding the complex name is adding one brick to the wall, adding the nominate species is another one, and each additional species is another brick. Sure, it's better to add two bricks than one brick, but it's better to add one brick than no bricks. Sure, the situation where a "Pluteus cervinus complex" ID and a "Pluteus cervinus" ID bump an observation to "Pluteus sect. Pluteus" rather than the more precise "Pluteus cervinus complex" isn't ideal. But it's closer to ideal than not being able to specificy "Pluteus cervinus complex" at all. When someone later does hook up P. cervinus to "Complex P. cervinus", those observation names are automatically changed.
(3) Of course, goes without saying! If you check out the paper I linked, there are many species in the P. cervinus group.
We can disagree on whether a complex is necessary, but the rules for how a complex should be set up within the iNat taxonomic hierarchy should be followed, so let's focus on those?
Assuming you want to create a new complex, maybe following these steps will help?
Step 1 - determine the parent and. children of the complex you want to create. e.g. if the taxonomy is:
Taxon A
..Taxon B
..Taxon C
..Taxon D
the design for a new Complex E with parent Taxon A and children Taxon C and Taxon D would look like this:
Taxon A
..Taxon B
..Complex E
....Taxon C
....Taxon D
Complex Pluteus cervinus should sit directly above Species Pluteus cervinus which would mean its parent needs to be Section Pluteus. Can you explain which children of the ones listed below it should contain?
Section Pluteus
..Pluteus alniphilus
..Pluteus americanus
..Pluteus atrofibrillosus
..Pluteus atromarginatus
..Pluteus brunneidiscus
..Pluteus cervinus
..Pluteus concentricus
..Pluteus elaphinus
..Pluteus eos
..Pluteus exilis
..Pluteus hibbettii
..Pluteus hongoi
..Pluteus kovalenkoi
..Pluteus leucoborealis
..Pluteus methvenii
..Pluteus oreibatus
..Pluteus orestes
..Pluteus pellitus
..Pluteus petasatus
..Pluteus pouzarianus
..Pluteus primus
..Pluteus rangifer
..Pluteus salicinus
..Pluteus saupei
..Pluteus sepiicolor
..Pluteus shikae
Step 2, once you've designed the structure of the complex as in step 1, next move Complex Pluteus cervinus to the proper parent (Section Pluteus) and make it active
Step 3, then move the children (e.g. Species Pluteus cervinus etc) to the new complex by changing their parents
Please do Steps 1-3 at one go so the tree isn't left in a partially curated state where the complex is active but not at the proper position on the tree or with the proper set of children.
hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions about how to properly set up complexes within the iNat taxonomic hierarchy
This complex has no subordinate taxa included. Maybe could it even be replaced by Pluteus sect. Pluteus?