Flag for Taxon: great stinging nettle (Urtica dioica)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| raymie | great stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) |
Why was the common name changed? |
Apr. 25, 2022 14:14:14 +0000 | dysm |
comments |
Comments
I don't know but I disagree that it's the right name to be used so I changed it. If somebody has a compelling argument for a change, it can always be changed back.
@dallonw "European Stinging Nettle" is still listed as the default.
It says stinging nettle for me.
@dallonw That's weird.
It also said "great stinging nettle" as the default for me before. Isn't it meant to be the same default for everybody?
The name I've been seeing (and I flagged it for) is "European Stinging Nettle". Perhaps it's still set as the default for the US?
How about now?
It's back to "Stinging Nettle" now.
Okay, good. I'm not sure why it didn't work the first time. Maybe it was going alphabetically for some reason. Weird.
The name was changed back. @bouteloua Why?
The default common name worldwide was, and is, "great stinging nettle".
@bouteloua Then how come I see "European Stinging Nettle" - and why was it changed from simply "Stinging Nettle" in the first place?
Not to butt in again but I also see European stinging nettle now, which I didn't earlier today, unless it was changed again.
did my added notes not save in the taxon history? it only displays as European stinging nettle for people who have chosen to default to names used in North America. great stinging nettle is the default globally.
Why was it changed in the first place though? Isn't this species found throughout the northern hemisphere?
North American Urtica is primarily U. gracilis https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/141854-Urtica-gracilis and U. dioica is not native here.
Ah okay, so this is a new split? Can we not apply the name "European Stinging Nettle" until the taxon swap is committed, then? Stinging Nettle is often claimed to be an introduced invasive in North America when it is in fact a native. I feel like having the name "European" for this might cause trouble relating to this. After the taxon swap is committed this can go back to being "European Stinging Nettle".
U. gracilis is an active taxon, so native stinging nettles in our area should be identified as that species.
@bouteloua Yes, but many are already IDed as (and will continue to be IDed as) this taxon until the swap is committed.
Since U. gracilis is an active taxon, that would be an identifier error.
@bouteloua Yes, but most people aren't even aware this split has happened - I wasn't aware until I saw your comment here an hour ago. There are thousands of observations that were correctly identified until recently but now must be re-IDed (unless the taxon swap is commited). I will start IDing North American stinging nettle as U. gracilis, but please give this is a different common name until the taxon swap is committed (which will presumably be soon).
@bouteloua Why don't you just make the split now, after which I presume that "identifications will be re-assigned to the output taxa based on their atlases", which I expect means that all American observations that had been ID'd as "Urtica dioica" will be changed to "Urtica gracilis"? We still see American observations being called "European Stinging Nettle" putting our native species at risk of being pulled out by people thinking it is an alien weed, when in fact it is a critical, native habitat plant for multiple butterflies here, and I've heard also important for a rare snail!
Hi Stewart, I would, but only staff can do so for a taxon change this large. I've been waiting for several weeks.
@bouteloua
You said above: " it only displays as European stinging nettle for people who have chosen to default to names used in North America. great stinging nettle is the default globally." That IS the problem!
My issue, and the issue of others in this dialogue, is that, except for the minority of North American observations that are now being called "U. gracilis", all of the North American observations of our native Stinging Nettles are being called "European", implying that our native nettles are not native. Why not now make the default North American English name for U. dioica "Stinging Nettle"? Maybe any curator could do this. Then, when the taxon split is committed, and North American observations of U. "dioica" are transferred to U. "gracilis", the North American observations that had been marked "U. dioica" will be changed to both "U. gracilis" and "Slender Stinging Nettle"? In the mean time, we wouldn't have our native nettles being called alien. I then will no longer cringe each time I see an observation of our native nettles that I have to either just leave it as "European", which I strongly object to, or agree that it is U. dioica and "European", with an explanation of how I agree that it is U. "dioica", but don't agree that it is "European", which I don't like, or call it "U. gracilis" with a long explanation, while disagreeing with the observer who is calling it by the name that, except for rare exceptions, of people already using U. "gracilis" here, is the one that has always been used for native, North American Stinging Nettles.
When is this split happening?
This hasn't been resolved. Tens of thousands of observations of nettles in North America are now being referred to as "European" plants. I know this is complicated and confusing, but something has to change here.
@bouteloua - I agree that the common name of U. dioica should be temporarily changed to "Stinging Nettle" until the taxon split is enacted, but I don't want to overrule your opinion on this. The current situation is causing a fair bit of chaos, so I was wondering if you would reconsider. Thanks!
I expect the main issue for most of us is not whether iNaturalist use the name U. dioica for European material, or U. gracilis for North American material, but whether the English name "European Stinging Nettle" be used at all. There are at least 2 issues, one issue is of protecting an ecologically important native species from those who want to pull out European invasives, when the name "European" is applied to plants that most Americans who learned scientific names, rightly, or wrongly, know as "Urtica dioica". Then, as another iNaturalist user pointed out, it could an issue of cultural sensitivity, of a plant that was used by the native Americans, long treated by the scientific community as "Urtica dioica", being called "European", which could seem like another hijacking of everything that was part of the native American culture.
The Europeans don't need the name "European Stinging Nettle". As most Americans, and likely most American universities (as the 1st two local ones I checked), still use "Urtica dioica" as the name for our American material, and most American iNaturalist records, for what might now be called "U. gracilis", are still called U. dioica, people will see the name "European" being used for U. dioica, which most, who learned the scientific name, still understand to be the name for the nettles we find in North America, and almost all of which are native. You can permanently remove the name "European" from U. dioica, and you could call your narrowly defined U. dioica, that I had known as "U. dioica dioica", for the European race, "Stinging Nettle" (without "European"), or any of the 10 other English names iNaturalist offers in its taxonomy section for Urtica dioica. It is a big problem for many of us that iNaturalist refers to plants that most of us know as native, and know as "U. dioica", as European. @dallonw If you made the decision to name "U. dioica" "European Stinging Nettle", can you now see the reason that we need another name for it?
@stewartwechsler - Important points, but much of this will be resolved/appear differently after the taxon split is actually committed. I see on the forum that you have written, in error, that the split already happened (it has not).
When is the split going to happen? It has now been several months since we were told it should be happening.
That's up to iNaturalist's staff. I understand they've been very, very busy lately. The discussion for that split is available here: (I know you know, just linking for clarity of discussion:
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/559292)
@ddennism You tell me that " much of this will be resolved/appear differently after the taxon split is actually committed". Do you know if, after the split, the name "European Stinging Nettle" will still appear under any language as the name for U. dioica, because that name for any widely, or narrowly interpreted "Urtica dioica" will still be a big problem!
As described above, for the subset of people who have selected a preferred locality in North America for the display of common names (rather than defaulting to the global common names) the name "European Stinging Nettle" will display for them, as it does now, for the Eurasian species, U. dioica. I assume that this is a deliberate choice to dissuade people adding new observations of native American stinging nettles from using the now-understood-to-be-innacurate identification, "U. dioica".
After the split is committed, most "U. dioica" identifications of stinging nettles in North America will change to "U. gracilis" or "Urtica" identifications. So I am not quite following why it would be a "big problem" for U. dioica in the narrow, post-split sense to have a common name that reflects its alienness here. That sounds like a good choice to me. It concisely communicates, only to an audience that has elected to use localized common display names, that the plant is Eurasian, and as you point out, people do use iNaturalist to inform their ecological restoration interests. U. dioica (strict sense) does occur spontaneously in North America; it is even quite common in some places here, at least accordingly to some floras.
From your statement, "it is a big problem for many of us that iNaturalist refers to plants that most of us know as native, and know as "U. dioica", as European" I think you might really be meaning to protest the pending taxonomic change. That's fine, but it might be better to register that on the other flag. Otherwise, I'd look forward to a future taxonomic update with corresponding localized common names.
In the meantime, I know it is frustrating to see "European" in front of plants currently identified as "U. dioica", especially when we know that the identifier presumably was using "U. dioica" in the older, broader, pan-ploidy, pan-continental, pan-ecological sense. (The two entities are quite different, it turns out!) You can alleviate this by re-identifying them as "U. gracilis" manually, if you'd like, but when the taxon split occurs, some of those IDs will change to "U. gracilis" anyway. This is what I was getting at when I wrote that "much of this will be resolved..."
@DW You said "If somebody has a compelling argument for a change, it can always be changed back." I believe I have offered the compelling reason.
The North American common name should not have been changed to add the "European" designation until the split was implemented. Therein lies the source of the problem. Perhaps it should be changed back unless and until the split is fully implemented.
Could you state the compelling reason succinctly? I'm just struggling to follow.
Here's my compelling reason: Keeping it at "European" encourages people to identify native American observations correctly, as U. gracilis, rather than incorrectly, as U. dioica.
@ddennism The name of the nettles found in at least NW North America should never have been changed at least until the taxon split. We now have gone many months with iNaturalist calling a native plant I value more than most "alien".
@ddennism - Why not temporarily set the common name of Urtica dioica to "Stinging nettle" and then change it back to "European stinging nettle" once the taxon split is complete? More than likely, this taxon split isn't going to happen any time soon. The idea that having thousands of observations mislabelled is going to somehow help people "correct" the IDs when American stinging nettle is currently spread across 3 different active taxon names (Urtica dioica, Urtica gracilis, and Urtica gracilis gracilis), instead of just leading to utter confusion seems silly to me. Most iNat IDers are not aware that we're waiting on a taxon split, so they're not going to understand what they're supposed to do. By the Principle of Least Astonishment, we should be using "Stinging nettle" in the meantime.
@ddennism I would think the common name should reflect accurate usage, what a plant is called by people, not to "encourage" whatever behavior we want. This is nomenclature, language, not social engineering.
Also, since the taxonomic split hasn't happened, U. dioca is correct for American plants since that taxon is pre-split, therefore it means U. dioica in the broad sense. That taxon only means U. dioca in the narrow sense (European) after the split happens.
@zygy If you look at the dialogue from the start, it isn't at all clear that even the other curators wanted the English name in North America to read "European Stinging Nettle" before the split, so I would recommend that you, as a curator, do just as you suggested would be the right thing, and change the English name for U. dioica back to "Stinging Nettle", at least until after the split. Earlier you were concerned about overriding another curator. You would just be fixing a mistake, and solving a problem. I don't know that any of the curators are invested in the name "European Stinging Nettle", at least before the split.
@gordonhogenson - No, it is a user error to identify American native stinging nettles as U. dioica as long as U. gracilis is available as an ID. It is currently available. This doesn't really have anything to do with the split, except that post-split some observations will have their names automatically changed from "U. dioica" to "U. gracilis".
@stewartwechsler - I am a curator, and I would like the Eurasian species to continue to have an accurate common name, "European Stinging Nettle". I assume the curators above who made the common name change agree. This is appropriate, as I laid out above, both before and after the split as long as "U. gracilis" is available.
@zygy - Those users should identify American native nettles accurately as "U. gracilis", which will not result in any astonishment.
I'm going to bow out of the conversation now. I asked for an argument against calling a Eurasian species "European Stinging Nettle" and the only direct response to this was that users who misidentify U. gracilis as "U. dioica" will be surprised by the common name they see associated with "U. dioica"." This seems fine to me, and will hopefully prompt people to learn how starkly different these two species are.
@ddennism You said the split hasn't "happened yet' but it seems that's not entirely true. In many respects it has, as U. gracilis exists as a taxon and U. dioica is now dubbed "European stinging nettle." The problem is that decisions are being made AS IF the split has been committed, when it has not been committed.
@ddennism - No one is arguing against that logic AFTER the split has been committed. The issue is that right now it isn't at all clear (without being aware of the pending split) why the majority of American Stinging Nettle observations are called European Stinging Nettle. I'm sure you are correct that in some cases this might lead an IDer to change the ID to U. gracilis or U. gracilis gracilis, but until that split is committed, I think it will more often lead to confusion and disagreements. Personally, I would much rather have 100 bad identifications than 10 upset iNaturalist users (which is my wild guess at the hypothetical trade-off here). If neither yourself nor @bouteloua want to participate further in this discussion, I'm inclined to make the change myself, but I would really prefer to build a consensus on this so it doesn't end up going back and forth. Does my argument make sense or are there other factors I'm not adequately considering?
Since there were no further comments, I went ahead and removed the North American prioritization for the name "European Stinging Nettle". The name "Great Stinging Nettle" should now be the default for all locations. Please restore the North American prioritization for "European Stinging Nettle" as soon as the taxon split has been committed. Also feel free to continue the discussion here.
Thank you @zygy That is an improvement! That said, I'm not quite sure there won't be a problem with "European Stinging Nettle" after the taxon split, with multiple institutions still using U. dioica for the native North American material, not to mention the number of users that won't have caught up with the taxon split.
Isn't it just "Stinging Nettle"? With "European Stinging Nettle" being the nominate subspecies?