[Taxacom] Global counts of accepted genera

[Tony Rees]

Peter, thanks for your comment...

Presently IRMNG has 3,973 genus names in Reptilia (NB without Aves) listed
as "accepted", both extant and fossil, plus a further 3,486 listed as
"uncertain" (not yet researched). This gives a range for eventual
"accepted" of between 3,973 (no "uncertain" names accepted) and 7,459 (all
"uncertain" names accepted), mean value 5,716. This is the figure we quote
in the paper, with an uncertainty range +/- 1,743 (half of the "uncertain"
names). One take on your comment is that a larger percentage than half of
the "uncertain" names may turn out to be unaccepted (synonyms,
misspellings. etc.) but that cannot be ascertained without additional
research... The data (full set of names and associated statuses) are
provided if anyone would like to look into this, i.e. refine the estimate
further. From experience with other groups the "uncertain" names often do
split around 50:50 between accepted names and synonyms, but for Reptilia
that may not be the case. I (or anyone) can use the IRMNG "advanced search"
interface to see how many of the "uncertain" names are presently listed as
fossil; that might illuminate the issue further... I will do this in a
little while and report back, if you like.

Regards - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
https://about.me/TonyRees


On Thu, 2 Apr 2020 at 13:00, Peter Uetz via Taxacom <
taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> wrote:

>
> Rees et al. come up with a mean estimate of 5,716 reptilian genera
> (including birds),
> which is a 1.65-fold overestimate of the 3459 reptilian genera in Avibase
> and the Reptile Database (2265 bird + 1194 reptile genera).
>
> These two groups are a well-studied sample (about 11,000 species each)
> with a third of all vertebrates,
> hence I would conclude that Tony’s estimate is clearly quite a bit over
> the actual number
> (even when considering his estimate of ~21% of genus names being fossil).
>
> Just saying …
>
>
>
> >> ----- Original Message -----
> >> From: "Tony Rees via Taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <mailto:
> taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
> >> To: "taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu <mailto:
> taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>; "Tony Rees"
> >> <tonyrees49 at gmail.com <mailto:tonyrees49 at gmail.com>>
> >> Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2020 4:40 AM
> >> Subject: [Taxacom] Global counts of accepted genera
> >>
> >>
> >>> Dear Taxacomers,
> >>>
> >>> Have you ever wondered how many genus names for accepted taxa have been
> >>> published, broken down by taxonomic group? and/or "all names", synonyms
> >>> (sensu lato) included (together with the actual lists of names as a
> >>> downloadable file) - well, the following newly published paper in the
> >>> journal "Megataxa" goes some way to answering these questions:
> >>>
> >>> Rees et al., 2020: "All genera of the world: an overview and estimates
> >>> based on the March 2020 release of the Interim Register of Marine and
> >>> Nonmarine Genera (IRMNG)"
> >>> https://www.mapress.com/j/mt/article/view/megataxa.1.2.3 <
> https://www.mapress.com/j/mt/article/view/megataxa.1.2.3>
> >>>
> >>> In case this is of interest, in the present "interesting" times...
> >>>
> >>> Regards to all - Tony
> >>> Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
> >>> https://about.me/TonyRees
>
>
> ————————————————————————————————————
> Peter Uetz
> Center for Biological Data Science (CeBiDaS)
> (formerly Center for the Study of Biological Complexity)
> Virginia Commonwealth University
> Richmond, VA 23284
> USA
>
> Reptile Database (http://www.reptile-database.org <
> http://www.reptile-database.org/>)
> http://people.vcu.edu/~uetz/ <http://people.vcu.edu/~uetz/>
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