Flag for Taxon: Georgia calamint (Clinopodium georgianum)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| southern_appalachia | Georgia calamint (Clinopodium georgianum) |
miscongruency with POWO/outdated taxon |
Oct. 10, 2022 19:35:29 +0000 | loarie |
see comments |
Comments
I'm no expert, but this appears to be another instance of a taxon change which goes against prevailing local taxonomic authorities in the region where this uncommon and endemic species actually occurs. Despite the reason cited in the flag, it looks as though it is POWO which is outdated here, and this taxon change is likely to be reversed when the local authorities' preferred name eventually flows up to POWO and then trickles back to iNat again.
Is there some recent discovery that has spurred this name change, or is this just about bringing iNat into alignment with POWO?
For a very long discussion with multiple references of why this taxon change is inappropriate, unless there is new information available that has not been part of the discussion of this species for over a century https://www.facebook.com/groups/852741131463538/posts/7993604194043827
Curators are supposed to be curating in the direction of POWO, unless there's a deviation in place. generally curators prioritize these issues once they've been flagged as this one was on Oct 10 which is why I resolved this particular issue
If you want to keep an eye on flags for a group, e.g. Lamiaceae, and chime in as they arise you can do so here
https://www.inaturalist.org/flags?utf8=%E2%9C%93&flagger_type=any&flagger_name=&flagger_user_id=&user_name=&user_id=&flaggable_type=Taxon&taxon_name=Mint+Family&taxon_id=48623&deleted=any&flags%5B%5D=inappropriate&flags%5B%5D=other&reason_query=&resolved=no&resolver_name=&resolver_user_id=&commit=Filter&commit=Filter&flagger_user_id=&utf8=%E2%9C%93
Another good endpoint to check if you want to proactively flag to propose/discuss deviations are these 'relationship unknown' taxa https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/10/relationship_unknown?utf8=%E2%9C%93&filters%5Btaxon_name%5D=Mint+Family&filters%5Btaxon_id%5D=48623&filters%5Brank%5D=
they are all the active taxa (e.g. Lamiaceae) in iNat that aren't in POWO and aren't accounted for via deviations. In otherwords, these are the set of taxa curators are instructed to deal with by brining them in line with POWO
But generally, rather than deviate, its better to provide your feedback directly to Plants of the World Online/POWO by emailing bi@kew.org . They update weekly and unlike iNat they are focused on building a global vascular plant taxonomy with broad buy in, so it would be much better to provide feedback there rather than us trying to reinvent the wheel here. I know @whiteoak is interested in finding a way to get more bottom up/ regional expertise driving taxonomic choices in global references like POWO, this might be a great example of that. If I can help facilitate anything with POWO please let me know
Also looping in @tonyrebelo who I believe has been very successful at getting POWO to incorporate changes from the S.Afr botany community, incase he has any tips
We have our own taxonomy backbone for southern Africa. So for discrepancies, I generally contact POWO and BODATSA and pose the question as to why there is a difference between the two. I also get hold of the latest literature and include links to them to assist the curators.
Both curators usually reply within a day or two. I have not collected stats, but my feeling is that each is wrong about half the time, with POWO being negligent on smaller local journals, and BODATSA missing international journals dealing with widespread species. POWO is a pain in that they unilaterally make decisions, without publishing them, or explaining them: but this has only been an issue with incorrect Latin spelling and with validation of names (noma nuda and duplicate names), and they have been most helpful with facilitating our taxonomists to publish corrections.
More of a problem are iNaturalist users who dont appreciate that publications can takes days, weeks or months to process, and who want instant updates, before POWO (or BODATSA) have had time to process the changes.
We have not had any unsolvable issues yet, so I am afraid I cannot help in this case, other than to suggest that you contact POWO, make your case, and see the response.
The main possibilities are that POWO just missed the article and so have not yet processed it, that there is a taxonomic issue and the proposed changes are not legally acceptable and so were rejected (see above about POWO communicating these, but they will explain it when asked), or that there are conflicting articles and the matter is not resolvable and POWO is waiting for clarity.
Generally POWO updates immediately on being presented with an update or an issue is resolved, but the web version is only updated weekly.
Hope that this helps.
I strongly support the view that we use POWO as the external backbone.
PS: Another good endpoint to check if you want to proactively flag to propose/discuss deviations are these 'relationship unknown' taxa https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_frameworks/10/relationship_unknown?utf8=%E2%9C%93&filters%5Btaxon_name%5D=Mint+Family&filters%5Btaxon_id%5D=48623
Note that POWO did not originally include subspecific stati, so that POWO cannot be used as a backbone below species level. Apparently, they are including subspecies and varieties now, but it will take years for them to catch up.
For plants, subspecific taxa should simply be excluded from requiring deviations, at least until POWO is reasonably up to date.
It turns out this is a complex nomenclatural issue, and it is possible that POWO may be right on this one, but they give no evidence or citations for the change. It is important for everyone to "show their work" and provide references and documentation for changes. In the past week, a Ph.D. student of @whiteoak and I have done quite a bit of research on this species, and we may try to publish these investigations within the next year. If we are making name changes that are contrary to a century or more of usage (as POWO did) without any documentation, there are going to be many questions about the change.
POWO considers C. georgianum to be a synonym of C. carolinianum.
https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:61187-2