Flag for Taxon: Monarda serotina
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bouteloua | tcurtis | Monarda serotina |
not a valid taxon |
Aug. 6, 2022 20:15:35 +0000 | Not Resolved |
Comments
right
Should the name be changed to Monarda "serotina" since it hasn't been described yet? I'm iffy about undescribed taxonomic elements, but I do think it works best for categorizing them on iNat before they are formally named.
Provisional names are (meant to be) excluded from the iNat taxonomy, aren't they? Theoretically, if that were to be enforced, what taxon should this be merged with (M. fistulosa?) or should it just be reverted to genus? I think the cat is out of the bag with this one, anyway, so it makes sense to retain it as a deviation from the authority until such time as it formally dealt with. The taxon concept seems to be widely understood and documented (e.g. the above link) so it makes sense to retain it. I just wish I could get all the Australian fishes with longstanding, well understood, provisional names into the iNat taxonomy!
Oh, and in response to the question you actually asked @rynxs, I'd vote to leave the name without the commas.
Thanks for making a deviation rynxs, I added a link to this flag https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_framework_relationships/620263
are unnamed taxa are now accepted here?
It's up to the community to decide whether deviations are warranted. I wasn't involved in this one. My personal preference is always to work directly with POWO rather than make deviations, they update weekly and working with them rises all boats and keeps iNat from reinventing the wheel of a shared global plant taxonomy
This about unpublished names now being okay should be added to the curator guide. Other conversations you've been involved in have come to the opposite conclusion (unaccepted even if everyone agrees it would be "helpful") and because of that, community members including myself have taken that as defacto site policy for many years.
IMO there's always been some ambiguity about whether unpublished names are a good idea - the main type I continue to lobby for is unpublished names in order to ensure that the generic part of the species binomial matches the genus they descend from - but this remains an ongoing controversy https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/588478
I agree the curator guide needs updating
@rynxs and @rfoster given @bouteloua' concerns about wanting to avoid provisional names, on top of my desire to avoid deviations from POWO should we swap M. serotina with M. fistulosa?
@loarie no, at the very least do not swap M. "serotina" into M. fistulosa. It is very likely a distinct entity from M. fistulosa, and as such should either be given the provisional name or remain at genus level. I do not know how to use observation fields to mark undescribed species, but I hear that it's a possibility for situations like this one. I ask that all current observations of M. "serotina" be marked before any swapping occurs.
I will be leaving for a trip southward in just a few hours, and will be returning by Tuesday. Part of this trip is a stop to see M. "serotina." Please hold off until I return.
Perhaps some kind of provisional ID system would be helpful, if that's possible to implement? Observations would reach RG at genus level if given a provisional ID, but at least they would be identified more specifically than is possible otherwise.
@sedge @wildlandblogger @tcurtis @abelkinser @brandoncorder
("IMO there's always been some ambiguity " - e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/350302 "closing - iNat can't accomodate undescribed species. Maybe open feature request on the forum, but no curation todos here")
The way this is treated with Etheostoma at the moment (there's four undescribed Etheostoma aff. spectabile) is to put them in a complex (the Etheostoma spectabile complex) and not ID them down to species until they're described officially. I think that's a good way to handle things with taxonomically complicated groups containing undescribed entities.
IT's kind of like in papers where you put aff. in a scientific name. It's representing that currently the taxonomy only recognizes the original species, but that there's recognized differences that haven't been formally described.
my preference for provisional names/hybrids etc is, rather than add these to the taxonomy, to ID to the nearest common ancestor (e.g. Genus) and use an observation field such as https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/5737 or https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/14064 to track the observations. We're not prioritizing new functionality to handle provisional names/hybrids anytime soon unfortunately. If I'm understanding @bouteloua correctly, they want a hard no for provisional names in all cases, or at lease consistency in the rule as its written and enforced. If there's already a norm of saying a hard no to provisional names and making exceptions would create confusion, then I agree we shouldn't have Monarda serotina in the taxonomy
Just had this name tagged on several of my observations. It is still not validly described, and as far as we know may never be (I first heard about this name like a decade ago and it still hasn't happened).
The arguments presented above notwithstanding, allowing names that have not been validly described is a bad idea almost by definition (i.e. the botanical code calls them invalid names for a reason).
First, invalid names have no formally described boundaries, and if and when they are described, they may or may not align with the vague notion that previously existed about them. Second, who is the arbiter of what constitutes a sufficiently well known invalid taxon? Will iNat's taxonomy be thoroughly at the whim of individual curators? Third, some of these invalid names are so informal that they could be easily confused. For example the same Indiana botanist who deposited the speciemens for so-called Monarda serotina at Butler University Herbarium in the orignal link, told me he believes Arisaema triphyllum should be split into multiple species, which he simply numbers (e.g. Arisaema sp. 2), and it wouldn't be hard to imagine a situation where multiple numbering schemes exist. Furthermore, a botanist could come along and describe a species of Mondara in Mexico as "Monarda serotina," which would immediately have priority over a name that was never validly published, and then you'd have a slew of incorrectly identified observations on your hands.
I'm a hard no on this, and I would hope there might be a way to have this discussion on a broader level. It feels quite arbitrary to formally allow this particular non-scientific name on iNat. To avoid a slippery slope of chaos, iNat should not be a place for doing taxonomy, it should be a place for using exisiting recognized taxonomies.
I agree with @doju that iNat use valid scientific names only. Where appropriate, I think a written description referencing on-going reserach related to a possible valid name change should accompany an observation. Unpublished names lead to unnecessary confusion.
If someone does decide to swap, please let everyone know here well before committing so observations IDed as Monarda serotina can be marked with observation fields.
FYI - I created an observation field for this as well as two other Monardas under study (https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/16776). I've marked all observations that have already been ID'd as serotina, although there are many more to be expected, still hiding in fistulosa and clinopodia observations.
it baffles me that unpublished names are still allowed, not even marked as provisional, in the broader iNaturalist taxonomy. I agree that this is not really tenable. if the observation field has been implemented, can this unsupported taxon entry be eliminated, or at least altered to show that this isn't a published species?
@choess @t_e_d
Swap to the genus.
I'd still like to see this resolved as well, for what it's worth. It's been over a year since it was flagged
@t_e_d -- makes sense. I would advise everyone to not commit it yet, pending final discussion, but -- in part because it will show up on the taxon entry itself, signaling to anyone who visits that page, in case they have an interest in weighing in -- I've drafted a swap here: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/141503
@doju -- I'm not surprised to see this gather dust, but it should be resolved, yes. I completely agree with your points above, by the way. if there's anything to which the slippery slope criterion applies, it's something like these unpublished names. if, as staff have asserted, iNaturalist is not meant to be a source for taxonomy, then it absolutely should not be a place where un-peer-reviewed names are implemented with no nomenclatural citation to fix the description. I don't understand the reluctance to dispense with provisional, unaccepted names here -- it happens in museum (and living) collections around the world all the time. I would argue that such provisional names should not be absorbed by secondary sources like the linked Indiana Plant Atlas either, most especially when there's no literature cited in support of the supposed natural history of the putative taxon.
https://indiana.plantatlas.usf.edu/plant.aspx?id=3796