Taxonomic Swap 69353
(Committed on 2020-01-15)
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Comments
absolutement, mon amis!
I have had a fair bit of feedback from others, some well trained, too, all saying - more phylogeny needed. I couldn't agree more, but ICZN stipulates only a diagnosis is needed (no even a full description). So we have to live with the idosyncracies of ICZN that result when lumpers and splitters voice their opinions in the strictest of terms.... To be honest about the Volynkin et al paper - it should stimulate further work from other researchers (in Taiwan there are researchers who groaned when they saw this paper, as it means the work they're almost ready to submit on the same group will need revising!); and some of the splitting is probably OTT (over the top). Without seeing a full phylogeny (morphological plus molecular as a minimum, preferably with some ecological and life history analysis too), you're quite right to suggest this paper is but a stepping stone in our understanding.
Yes. Well, in some fields papers like this have been given "a delayed welcoming", meaning that to the new names has been given some time; so that the community can have their say, and evaluate the new things with time. In the worst cases many of the new names have been found out to be synonyms. When we do not have sequences to back up our taxonomical decisions, we are taking a big risk that something like that happens.
I would have been happy with the list of the current situation in Asura and Miltochrista. And the rest would have come later, with sequences. To me, this kind of behaviour tells of a culture where making lots of names and papers with lots of citations matter. And of course the makers knew what will happen: this paper has to be cited in all papers dealing with Lyclene/Asura/Miltochrista/Barsine/and all the new genera.
Lots implied here, and I fully feel the anger of the Taiwanese researchers.
Great, you were able to create the genus!
In my opinion, and I do not play any clairvoyant here, we have not seen the last of this yet. Some of Anton's genera are created hastily, it would have been nice to have some sequences as well... (One famous French mycologist once said that "50% of what I describe as new to science is crap, BUT the other 50% isn't." With that confidence the taxonomists have lot's of work for the next 50 years. And he described a lot...)