Flag for Taxon: Royen's tree cactus (Pilosocereus royenii)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| kevinfaccenda | Royen's tree cactus (Pilosocereus royenii) |
why inactive? |
Jan. 18, 2024 22:30:48 +0000 | Not Resolved |
Comments
Pilosocereus royenii is a synonym of Pilosocerus polygonus. It has therefore been set to inactive.
The populations (Puerto Rico and Virgin Island) that were still labelled as royenii by Franck et al. 2019 are now listed as Pilosocereus armatus following a revision by Franck 2021.
Why do you just change something for no reason?
If it is a synonym, you need to commit a taxon swap to correct the name. I have drafted a swap to do this.
See the curation manual for how to do this. It is not appropriate to EVER inactivate a taxon which has observations as it puts the several hundred observations of this species in limbo.
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide
Have you inactivated other synonyms? If so, they need to be swapped properly.
Feel free to tag me or other curators such as myself, @rynxs, , @kitty12 or others if you need help with making these changes.
I have drafted a swap to correct this issue.
@wolfgangb if a taxon is a synonym, inactivation does not establish the taxon as such. Only through a taxon swap will the observation IDs associated with the synonymous taxon be changed to the appropriate accepted taxon, and the name be added as a synonym to the accepted taxon.
There is a big issue here, P.royenii sensu stricto was given to Puerto Rico and VI Pilosocereus but there are hundreds of observations identified as such all over the Neotropics and the Caribbean. These are wrongly identified so a taxon swap does not fix this issue. All Puerto Rican and VI Observations have already been re-identified as P.armatus by @wolfgangb and I, but the rest of the P.royenii (excluding perhaps some of Hispaniola) would need to be re-identified as well. Making a taxon swap seemingly confirms something that is not true, there have never been any P.royenii outside the Puerto Rican Bank (when it was a valid species) and now as a syn. of P.polygonus it is only restricted to a single island. To further complicate the issue P.royenii appears as being native to several Neotropical countries as per iNat's database when this has never been the case. It is best in my opinion to delete this taxon al together unless someone knows how to edit all these details, thats why I had set it to inactive.
See:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334637489_Revision_of_Pilosocereus_Cactaceae_in_the_Caribbean_and_northern_Andean_region
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/354247877_Cactaceae_at_Caryophyllalesorg_-_a_dynamic_online_species-level_taxonomic_backbone_for_the_family
@stevemaldonadosilvestrini swapping does not confirm misidentifications as true, it transfers IDs from one taxon to another. If IDs exist outside a possible range, then you can set up a taxon split to carve off the erroneous IDs from P. royenii to Pilosocereus with the support of your scientific publications, then transfer the remaining "true" P. royenii IDs to P. polygonus.
Deleting/inactivating a taxon with observations is never an appropriate solution to misidentifications. Taxon changes exist specifically for cases like these. I would recommend reading through the curator guide, as Kevin has recommended. You have a number of utilities available to you as a curator that make such disruptive actions much less desirable.
The issue still persists, I can't currently confirm that even those IDs in Hispaniola are referable to said species. A taxon swap is easy, I have done many. That is not the issue.
But this is not a typical taxon swap, its more complex. P.royenii wasn't split into several species, nor was it swapped for a new taxon. It was found that P.royenii was applied to Puerto Rican material but C.royenii, a syn. of that taxon was applied to distinct Pilosocereus in Hispaniola and predated it. That is why it is a syn. of P.polygonus, and P.armatus had to be made from a different syn. applied to PR material.
I'll look into the possibility of 'carving' as you say. But it seems as more work for something that is still an error. There have never been P.royenii in Brazil for example.
At the very least, IDs of P. royenii could be swapped into the genus if no other recourse is found.
Further issues arise when several valid Pilosocereus species are currently syn. of P.royenii in iNat...
Pilosocereus millspaughii, Pilosocereus curtisii, Pilosocereus floccosus to name a few... these would also require to be 'carved' out from this taxon.
If you wish to help with this feel free to do so. We are all curators anyways.
Maybe @afranck can also chime in as he is one of the authors on both articles and also an iNat curator.
@rynxs I think that may be a viable option for the time being.
I would also suggest using a taxon split the misidentified observations to the genus level if there's not a 1 to 1 solution to this problem. From there, they can manually be reidentified properly.
@kevinfaccenda I'll try and do that rather, I was not aware we could do taxon splits to a higher level.
Sounds good. Setting these splits can be somewhat confusing, so I'd suggest that after you draft the split that you let myself or Ryan review it before you commit it.
Sure, it would be good for @afranck to also take a look!
I have identified all P. royenii according to Franck 2019 and 2021.
I wish it was possible to keep Pilosocereus royenii as used traditionally (for the most part), e.g. a proposal to conserve the name with a new type. A good case could be made but perhaps not an airtight one. And if not that, then a proposal to reject the name is warranted. But alas, I have not started any such thing. So P. armatus is here and available.
@kevinfaccenda @wolfgangb @rynxs
Pilosocereus royenii to Pilosocereus is already set, check it out in case you want to add anything.
@stevemaldonadosilvestrini inactivating a taxon which has several hundred observations is inappropriate. I have reactivated.
Inactivation should only be used when there are no observations or after a taxon swap / merge / etc.