Flag for Taxon: Genus Fulguropsis
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| miss_fortune | bouteloua | Genus Fulguropsis |
Mollusca Base and the current regime are very different |
Feb. 24, 2024 03:13:43 +0000 | kitty12 |
Added taxa |
Comments
F. spirata species will probably have to be re-identified.
If the subspecies have likely observations, please flag the species for curation separately.
Got it, thank you! The F. rachelcarsonae is the only subspecies with likely observations (technically as per the paper all observations in the Atlantic coast of Florida north is of said subspecies)
I have been working to re-identify the F. spirata as F. pyruloides, but there are a large number of observations and many of the older accounts are no longer active.
Is this something we should use a taxon split for? I see there is now a species complex. Do the species in the complex form a clade? It looks like it is being used for IDs, which is good. Just make sure to manually mark observations as RG where applicable.
That may be a good idea, I am not experienced curating taxonomy above adding species so I did not really understand how to or which taxon change to use so I just went with adding the species ID's manually within the new species added. The complex does form a clade (as recognised by the 2015 petuch paper) so I believe that would work if there was someone had more experience with how to work the taxonomic tree. The complex including F. spirata, F. pyruloides, and F. keysensis as well as the subspecies F. pyruloides rachelcarsonae. I have atlased each taxon, but I dont know how that would work because there are certain areas where the species can possibly intergrade.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342110090_The_Living_and_Fossil_Busycon_Whelks_Iconic_Mollusks_of_Eastern_North_America
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/166266
https://www.molluscabase.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=415405
I think if you've atlased them then you've already done the hard part of a split. The areas of overlap will result in observations being bumped up to the common ancestor for the complex. If the areas are huge, then that's not ideal for a split since it will require even more reidentifications. But if they are small, a split should be very effective. I don't think adding clades is an option.
Intergrades are small for the F. spirata complex (mississippi + louisiana coast, collier + monroe + miami-dade co florida). So, I believe a taxon split would be prudent, especially considering because the intergrading obs will be bumped to complex instead of species.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/139851
I have drafted the split, if anyone has any pertinent changes or knows to commit this better please let me know or execute it!
Looks like it's been committed. Congratulations on figuring it out @miss_fortune .
Glad you figured this out! Although it may be worth noting that one rather prolific author on this group is a notorious "splitter" to the extent that others in the field regard their work as largely meaningless. I've been told it will take 100+ years to sort out all the new "species" they have named. So who knows if these are legit species anyways…
While there are probably NOT just 5 "Busycon" whelks (sinistrum, canaliculatum, coarctatum, spiratum, carica), I think 5-6 species/subspecies of just Pear Whelks seems excessive. The variation is probably clinal from the Yucatan to the Carolinas with some ecomorphs based on depth or habitat possible. These are such large and iconic shells for the east coast of the U.S. for such taxonomic uncertainty. The Atlantic/Gulf split seems to be a thing for other organisms so I woulnd't be surprised if this was the case with the whelks, but it would be nice to have a well sampled phlogeny to back up all these names.
I personally feel as though the split between F. spirata and F. pyruloides is quite well established, especially with the barrier posed by the Mississippi Delta. But I understand you, I definitely agree he has some tendencies with species delineations. And based on his work with the deepwater F. plagosa clade and F. feldmanni there are definitely some issues present. If a review is done and it calls for merging the more dubious species like F. keysensis and F. texana, it would not be that difficult to moved them back into F. pyruloides or F. plagosa respectively. I really appreciate all of yall's help with this!
I also agree with rayray, there definitely needs to be more work done on this genus, with a greater and more diverse sample of specimens (ideally live specimens as well so we can have more characteristics about their behaviour, eggs, etc.)
According to Mollusca Base we are missing two species, F. texana and F. keysensis. The distributions of F. spirata are also incorrect, as the species is not recognised to exist east of the Mississippi River Delta.
We are also technically missing two subspecies
F. plagosa galvestonensis
F. pyruloides rachelcarsonae