Flag for Taxon: northern wild raisin (Viburnum cassinoides)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| charlie | rynxs | northern wild raisin (Viburnum cassinoides) |
does it need a taxon swap, or clarification? |
Aug. 28, 2022 13:23:17 +0000 | bouteloua |
committed taxon change |
Comments
Looks like Viburnum nudum subspecies were elevated to species without the species itself being split on iNaturalist. Was that intentional @rynxs?
thanks.
Shocking another marginal subspecies elevated to species level, isnt it. at least that way i wont get location based subspecies IDs. Sigh.
It was unintentional. I had meant to perform a split, but something came up and I forgot about the change. Thanks for reminding me.
If you check the paper I cited on the split, sounds like this one's not at all marginal, which is nice. Since iNat's still getting back on its feet and this affects 8K IDs, I'll set a reminder to commit this split within the next day or two.
I dunno, this sounds kind of marginal to me for species level:
Our molecular analyses have clearly identified three distinct lineages, one of which (V. nudum) is highly divergent from the other two. The morphological differences among the three clades are minor, but V. nudum can be distinguished with considerable confidence based on morphology alone. The more recently diverged V. nitidum and V. cassinoides are not so clearly separated based on morphological traits, but molecular evidence indicates that these two clades are isolated by more than geographic distance, and they appear to have maintained their separation through significant geographic movements during glacial cycles. Based on all of the available evidence we hypothesize that these three lineages are evolving independently, and we therefore, recognize them as separate species.
"considerable confidence" means they will just be identified based on location most of the time creating another recursive semi-cryptic species.
"evolving independently" should never be criteria for species vs subspecies, the fireflies on my hill are evolving somewhat seperately from one hill over, we need them to actually be different and not interbreeding under the old definition of species. which i guess has been discarded entirely in favor of whatever we have now.
Not a complaint at you cassi, just the system in general.
i guess i've lost faith in new taxonomy entirely, to be honest. I'm not trying to ask for this change not to happen, because that never works here anyway, all new changes are accepted on iNat if they make things more complex or difficult. But I would at least like it all swapped at once so i don't have people going piecemeal through my observations and bumping them back to genus level, which is frustrating.
What about it is marginal? It clearly states that the two closer lineages are independent. Just because two entities are similar does not mean they should be confined under the same species.
I've seen your comments on other flags and discussions. I understand apprehension to change, but any treatment will always have necessary corrections. I cannot understand why you would lose faith in a field that is clearly still developing. You only have 17 Viburnum observations out of 510 "stuck" at genus level. That seems fairly manageable, and would probably take less time to research and correct IDs than to create and maintain a discussion such as this one. If you need a copy of Weakley's Flora of the Southeastern United States, older editions are available for free online in .pdf format.
You keep editing your comments, so I'm going to stop responding for now. Your current comment misquotes the article, mischaracterizing it. The term used is "independently," not "seperately."
ok, i didn't mean to misquote, i fixed it. I'm sorry i was editing too much.
I don't understand why indepent evolution on that level now counts as species level difference, any subspeceis would be evolving independently otherwise it wouldn't be different. that didnt use to be the criteria they used to define species, it's changed so much, in favor of dramatic splitting.
Sure i only have 17 viburnum observations at genus but I've to 47,000 plant observations, and once they do this change they will continue to change everything else too. the rate seems to be increasing with no consistency or no counter balance at all. The goal seems to be constant change or splitting based on any shred of evidence, whereas leaving things alone or merging them is nearly nonexistent.
i should just post my journal for everyone on here to ignore, it's quicker than typing this stuff out for every taxonomist to ignore. Sand that the 'science' of taxonomy seems unwilling to listen to opposing ideas but, so be it.
This isn't a complaint about you either rynxs, it's just general commentary.
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/charlie/68030-my-take-on-taxonomy
I was hoping this would happen eventually
people are coming through northern new england observations of Viburnum nudum identifying them as cassanoides based on location, using a different flora than i am. Can we get some clarity either with a taxon swap or otherwise can i ask them to stop? There are two taxa referring to the same plant and it's causing problems. It should have just been left alone as subspecies.