Taxacom: species name vs specific epithet
=?UTF-8?Q?Mario_Sch=c3=a4del?=
mario.schaedel at gmail.com
Fri Dec 30 08:17:43 CST 2022
2022
Dear Evan,
to make this clear, with ?a strong preference for rank-free taxonomy? I
did not want to make a reference to any published or governed taxonomic
system. I assume you made a reference to the PhyloCode. Regarding this,
I would like to point out that I am not in favor of this project, nor am
I aware of any younger colleagues who are. Being aware of clearly going
off-topic from the original post, I nevertheless would like to shortly
elaborate my current view on taxonomy.
In my opinion, attaching ranks to names of groups of organisms and
governing a system of such ranks is a very inefficient and unnecessarily
complicated task. With every new phylogenetic insight it becomes
necessary to check whether the ranked system is still consistent. Also,
with the current naming conventions it is impossible to assure the
stability of names beyond the stem of the word. In a more practical
aspect, the use of monotypic names, which is endorsed by the ICZN,
sometimes makes it very tedious to distinguish between names of groups
of species and names that sound as if they could stand for multiple
species but in fact only refer to a single species.
In my opinion, taxonomy should be designed to be very simple: There
should be names of species and names of groups of species plus some
rules that govern which name takes precedence over another if they are
considered synonymous and how taxonomical acts should be published. When
there is no genus rank, the use of uninomial names becomes unavoidable;
however, there is still the possibility to form binomina by putting the
name of the parent group in front of the specific name.
Unfortunately, I am not aware of any ongoing efforts in this direction,
but I would be more than happy to contribute. As for now, I personally
try to follow the ICZN whilst ignoring the ranks as much as practically
possible.
Best wishes,
Mario
On 30.12.22 13:00, Evangelos Vlachos wrote:
> And which "rank-free" taxonomy is that? Because the one that
> officially claims to be "rank-free" has more obligatory ranks than the
> ICZN. I would love to see a real example of a rank-free taxonomy if
> there is one.
>
> The problem with Lanham's proposal is that author and date do not form
> part of the name, are just shortened bibliographic citations. They are
> there to help you find the evidence to establish availability and then
> validity. We should be able to read species names without having them
> accompanied by the annoying information of author names and dates.
>
> But it is now clear that "new" systems of "nomenclature" that are
> being created pay more attention to author names than to the taxon
> names themselves, while putting the starting date to the future. No
> wonder why they are popular among the new generation of taxonomists...
>
> The whole problem stems from the necessity to simplify things and
> communicate taxonomy with a single word. But that was never the idea
> and it does not work. To communicate taxonomy you do not need only a
> binomen, but a classification as well. Otherwise you just communicate
> words, not taxonomic concepts and ideas. Hence, ranks is what you
> need. Learn ranks and apply them well, and you will never need another
> system. But this is now getting off topic compared to the original thread.
>
> To return to the original point of the email, the ICZN is clear:
> species name is the binomen, whereas the specific name (i.e., name
> pertaining to a species) is the second part of the binomen. Databases
> can simply change the name of the field to "specific name" to be
> absolutely correct, but still their intentions are not harmful.
>
> Sincerely,
> Evan Vlachos
>
> On Fri, Dec 30, 2022, 07:59 Mario Sch?del via Taxacom
> <taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>
> Dear Derek,
>
> while I most often comply with binomial nomenclature by providing the
> species name as /Homo sapiens/ or /H. sapiens/, I would like to
> offer a
> different perspective on the species nomenclature that helped me
> personally for dealing with species and genus level taxonomical
> situations. The term specific epithet stems from a time where a
> unique
> combination of genus name and specific epithet seemed necessary to
> communicate taxonomical issues. Since Lanham proposed their
> concept of
> uninomial nomenclature ? only a unique combination of species name
> (or
> specific epithet), author name and date is required (e.g. /sapiens/
> Linnaeus, 1758) ? it should be clear that the unique combination of
> genus name and specific epithet, despite being required by the
> ICZN,? is
> more a nice to have feature than a necessity for communication, even
> more so as we live in the age of the internet, centralized
> databases and
> powerful search engines. So, for me personally, as someone with a
> strong
> preference for rank-free taxonomy, the specific epithet /is/ the
> species
> name and I only add the genus name or its abbreviation in front of it
> for redundancy and to not cause trouble during the publication
> process.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Mario
>
>
> Lanham, U. (1965). Uninominal nomenclature. /Systematic Zoology/,
> /14/(2), 144-144.
>
>
>
> On 12/30/22 00:22, Derek Sikes via Taxacom wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > Can we all stop using the term 'species' as a sometimes synonym for
> > 'specific epithet'?
> >
> > This is a super widespread problem, made all the more common by
> all the
> > database search interfaces that have a field called 'species'.
> >
> > A species name is composed of 2 words. Our species name is not
> 'sapiens',
> > it is Homo sapiens.
> >
> > And yet so often I see things like this -
> >
> >
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwsc.nmbe.ch%2Fsearch&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C3030629943484796a78d08daea709fab%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638080066680713320%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Sm%2Fc3ikJ0n10qHYJ7GcYqq7KbM9kFtDw%2Bw1cbhPb%2Ffs%3D&reserved=0
> <https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwsc.nmbe.ch%2Fsearch&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C3030629943484796a78d08daea709fab%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638080066680713320%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=Sm%2Fc3ikJ0n10qHYJ7GcYqq7KbM9kFtDw%2Bw1cbhPb%2Ffs%3D&reserved=0>
> >
> > which uses the term 'species' where it should say 'specific epithet'
> >
> > And also in introductory biology textbooks where they list
> something like:
> >
> > Genus - Homo
> > species - sapiens
> >
> > Happy New Year!
> > Derek
> >
> --
> he/him
> PhD Student
> Zoomorphology
> Ludwig-Maximilians-Universit?t M?nchen
> Munich, Germany
> _______________________________________________
> Taxacom Mailing List
>
> Send Taxacom mailing list submissions to: taxacom at lists.ku.edu
> For list information; to subscribe or unsubscribe, visit:
> https://lists.ku.edu/listinfo/taxacom
> You can reach the person managing the list at:
> taxacom-owner at lists.ku.edu
> The Taxacom email archive back to 1992 can be searched at:
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftaxacom.markmail.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C3030629943484796a78d08daea709fab%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638080066680713320%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=jT3HESyXPduAKV7VhVjX%2BlGSpXCDZ64ANn3A5Xht15Y%3D&reserved=0
>
> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring
> alliteration for about 35 years, 1987-2022.
>
--
Mario Sch?del (he/him)
Dr. rer. nat.
Technician
Animal Evolutionary Ecolology
Morgenstelle 28
72076 T?bingen
Germany
More information about the Taxacom
mailing list