Flag for Taxon: Octocorals (Subclass Octocorallia)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| joe_fish | choess | Octocorals (Subclass Octocorallia) |
see comments... |
Nov. 20, 2022 01:14:57 +0000 | matthew_connors |
All done, finally! |
Comments
Fantastic to get a much-needed taxonomic update! I'd love to help out with making these changes wherever I can. I'm away in the field for the next week or so but when I get back I can definitely help.
Thanks Matthew.
One problem that I foresee are existing identifications for Alcyoniidae and Clavulariidae. These families have historically been dumping grounds for most of the soft corals and stoloniferous corals, but these are now going to create disagreements on iNaturalist. For example, Sarcophyton, Lobophytum, & Sinularia (~4000 combined observations) were all traditionally alcyoniids, so these will have many IDs as such that will conflict with their new families.
I'm not sure what the solution is for this. There are some geographic differences that might allow for this to be atlased?
Hmmmm yeah if there are geographic differences it can be done, but otherwise I don't think there's any solution other than reverting them back to a higher taxon :/
Alcyoniidae is largely absent from the Indo-Pacific. The exceptions are New Zealand and South Africa, the latter of which also includes Sarcophytidae, Cladiellidae, and Sinulariidae... so that country might prove to be problematical. The tropical families are only found in KwaZulu-Natal, so maybe it can be atlased like that?
I'm not sure what the best way to handle Clavulariidae would be, since it overlaps with the tubiporids and carijoids in the Indo-Pacific. The incrustatids and cervids have more limited distributions that should be straightforward to implement. There are also ~25 observations of family-level undetermined species in the Indo-Pacific that would be nice to retain, if possible.
By the 'tropical families', which ones are you referring to there? It shouldn't be too difficult to revert all Indo-Pacific sightings but keep the New Zealand and South African ones. I think we'll probably need to make a number of temporary atlases for the swaps and then get rid of them later.
For those ~25 Clavulariidae observations, I think it would be easiest just to bookmark them and then ID them again after the swap given that there aren't many of them.
Sarcophytidae, Cladiellidae, and Sinulariidae are restricted to the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific.
the map for Sinularia gives a good idea of what the limits are.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?taxon_id=194112
Red Sea to Japan, Hawaii, Polynesia. southern limit is around Durban, Perth, Coff's Harbour, Norfolk Island, etc. the fauna varies a bit in places in the southerly latitudes. for example, Cladiella occurs more widely in New South Wales compared to Sinularia.
Ahhh okay okay got it
Okay okay I will be back properly tomorrow but I have been thinking about how best to tackle this. I think it will be easiest to start at a finer level and move up to the higher taxa as we go. So I reckon starting with the new and newly-reinstated genera will be the best option. I'm drafting some taxon changes as I write this so they will probably all be done by the time I post the comment!
Pseudonephthea: Bookmark all Gersemia liltvedi observations, add the new genus (and subfamily - I've just put this straight under Octocorallia for now), move them to the new name, then manually fix any observations that have disagreements. (Taxon swap here)
Dacrygorgia: There are no taxon swaps necessary because neither of the species are on iNat yet. I have created the genus and just placed it straight under Octocorallia for now.
Stenogorgia: Again, no taxon swaps necessary because the species it includes is not on iNat yet. I have created the genus and placed it straight under Octocorallia again.
Callistephanus: I have created the genus and drafted swaps for all of the species (here, here, here, here, and here). There aren't many observations so I think the easiest option will just be to bookmark them and manually fix anything that needs it.
Sclerophytum: I think the easiest option here is to bookmark all sightings of S. brassica, swap the entirety of Sinularia into Sclerophytum, swap S. brassica back, and then manually fix any S. brassica sightings that need fixing. Keeping them all in Alcyoniidae seems like the easiest option for now as well. The taxon swap is here.
That should be all of the genus-and-below changes, but if I've missed anything let me know. If all of these swaps look good to you @joe_fish I will commit the changes and then tag you in any of the sightings that have disagreements.
yeah, these seem good.
Alright, all have been committed. I'll let the IDs all update and then tomorrow I'll tag you in anything that has disagreements
There were surprisingly few disagreements, but I've tagged you in anything that needs attention
@joe_fish It looks like you will have a lot to do before Edition 2 of your book comes out! Thank you both for attempting to make sense of it all for us amateurs.
Yes, I'm in the midst of revising the octocoral chapter. Can confirm that it is a pain... though I feel like it'll be more work revising all the identifications on iNaturalist. Three cheers for @matthew_connors
Hahaha still so many swaps left to make here though, don't cheer me just yet :P
@joe_fish If I can help with any dogwork in this, I'm willing, though, as you know, not terribly knowledgeable in the field or about how iNat works or if I will be allowed to do any of it, etc. I'm just grateful for all the IDs that make corals much more interesting.
@joe_fish I'm all good for moving genera into new and newly-reinstated families, but were there many genera that were moved between already-existing families? If you'd be able to make a short list of them then I will get to swapping them all over to the correct families.
see Table 2
Ifalukellidae, Helioporidae, Corallidae, Acrossotidae, Tubiporidae, Melithaeidae, Alcyoniidae, Victorgorgiidae, Xeniidae, Gorgoniidae, Isididae
only some of these will have taxa on iNat
Ah thanks, I didn't realise there was a table of them. I will have a look and start swapping things
Okay there are going to be too many swaps to detail them all here but I am about to start moving all of the genera into their correct families. As before if there are sightings that get disrupted I'll tag you in them, or I think it will be easier to revert some IDs back to higher taxa in complex situations.
while you're at it, Stereonephthya is now a junior synonym of Neospongodes. not in WoRMS yet
Easy peasy, that one is done
Okay so the majority of the family changes have been done now, with a few exceptions.
Firstly, Acanthomuricea is listed twice in the paper - under Astrogorgiidae but also in the incertae sedis table. WoRMS puts it under Astrogorgiidae so that's where I've put it, but I can change that easily if need be.
Secondly, there are a couple of genera with a large number of sightings that I haven't swapped yet. There will be disagreements with some of the observations and it is not feasible to go through them all to check which. So then we have the choice to split the family and bump all the IDs back to a higher level, or leave them as-is and try to find the disagreements later.
I don't think it is possible to split the taxa along geographic lines unfortunately, as iNat atlases still only cover terrestrial places which is very unfortunate. We may be able get some of the observations split geographically if they are very close to land, but don't count on it.
It may be possible to bookmark only the observations which are identified to family level, swap the families out, and then go back to those observations to see what needs to be done. I think that would be my recommendation for most of these.
The genera and families are as follows:
Genus Eunicella, moved from Gorgoniidae to Eunicellidae. There are currently 1,288 observations of Eunicella, and iNat estimates that the total number of disagreements created by the move will be about 40. There are only 141 observations of Gorgoniidae at family-level though so it should be easy enough to bookmark these and go through them later.
Genus Paramuricea, moved from Plexauridae to Paramuriceidae. There are currently 292 observations of Paramuricea, and iNat estimates that the total number of disagreements created by the move will be none. There are 1,147 observations of Plexauridae at family-level. I think the best option here will simply be to move it and hope for the best - there might be one or two disagreements but we will have to be content with that.
Genera Lobophytum, Sarcophyton, and Sclerophytum, moved from Alcyoniidae to Sarcophytidae. There are currently 838, 1,672, and 1,215 observations of these genera respectively (3,725 total), and iNat estimates that the total number of disagreements created by these moves will be 90, 70, and 70 respectively (230 total). There are only 95 observations of Alcyoniidae at family-level though, so I think the best option will be the same as that for Eunicella (i.e. bookmark the family-level observations and go back to them after the move).
And finally, there are still 16 observations of Acanthogorgiidae at family-level. What would it be best to swap these out for? I can just make them Paramuriceidae, I can swap them for Malacalcyonacea when I create that, or you could just go through them manually and add a new ID.
If you are happy to go ahead with these changes as I've listed them @joe_fish, let me know and I will change them and tag you in anything that needs looking at.
I've gone through the acanthogorgiids and improved most of the IDs. Just one straggler that should fix itself (I think).
The rest of your changes sound good. Great work so far!
Sounds good, I'll get them all done soon
Alrighty @joe_fish, most changes are done now! Sorry to tag you in so many gorgonian observations.
There are still two main problems:
Firstly, the paper elevates Anthozoa (from class to subphylum), Octocorallia (from subclass to class), and Hexacorallia (from subclass to class), but WoRMS does not seem to have followed this. It does not really make a difference here on iNat so I have left it as it is in WoRMS, but I'm happy to change that if this is the better option.
Secondly, the new sea pen taxonomy is rather confusing and I'm not entirely certain how to approach it. iNat currently has the following:
Order Pennatulacea
--- Suborder Sessiliflorae
----- Various families
--- Suborder Subselliflorae
----- Various families
The new paper suggests the following:
Order Scleralcyonacea
--- Superfamily Pennatuloidea
----- All families
WoRMS seems to be utterly confused, and lists the following:
Order Scleralcyonacea
--- Superfamily Pennatuloidea
----- Suborder Sessiliflorae
----- Suborder Subselliflorae
----- All families
WoRMS only lists the suborders underneath the synonym Pennatulacea, but still considers them valid (albeit not with any families in it, I'm assuming because of the issues above). iNat will not allow a suborder to be placed beneath a superfamily though, so I'm not entirely sure what to do here.
this is the valid taxonomy on WoRMS
https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1609360
not this
https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1367
regarding Anthozoa, etc, it's fine to stick with WoRMS for now. if these changes become more widely adopted in the literature, it'll presumably trickle down to WoRMS
What about the two suborders though? WoRMS still regards them as valid but does not have any subordinate taxa, so I'm not entirely certain what to do with them here. I can just synonymise them for now if that is the easiest approach.
that superfamily is still in the process of being reclassified, so I wouldn't worry about the suprafamilial taxa
Okay, everything should be done and dusted! The sea pen IDs are probably still being updated but all the work is done :)
Oof. I don't think there's anything that can be done about that at all, and it's been more than a year since the user was active -_-
I think the only thing that can be done is if the ID becomes 'maverick' then the observation will revert to casual grade
I can also mark it as "ID cannot be improved" and it'll go Casual... but it's a nice observation and I don't want it to be resolved like that.
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/64017094
did you do anything with this genus? Alcyonium is absent from New Zealand
I didn't, that one was swapped out last year here
So Octocorallia has undergone a MASSIVE reclassification. There are dozens of new families, and essentially all of the higher-level taxonomy is changed.
https://ssbbulletin.org/index.php/bssb/article/view/8735
These changes are now reflected in WoRMS.
https://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1341
I don't know what the logistics are of implementing this into iNaturalist. Many of the more conservative identifications on here have been based on the prior classification, but these are now going to get in the way. For instance, any Indo-Pacific Plexauridae are now Paramuriceidae. Likewise, most of the Indo-Pacific Alcyoniidae are now referable to Sarcophytidae or Sinulariidae. Other higher-level taxa currently in use on here (Alcyonacea, Holaxonia, Calcaxonia, Scleraxonia) need to swap to Octocorallia. The one exception is Pennatulacea, which are now Pennatuloidea.
@loarie Care to take on this project?