[CPN] Some thoughts on how to address the Cellinese et al. species proposal

[David Marjanovic]

> There has been no discussion of the Cellinese et al. proposal on the CPN
> listserv for some time.  Perhaps everyone has said his or her piece?

I have received two longer comments that I have yet to post. Having moved to Berlin last week, I still don't have Internet at home, so everything is a bit difficult...

It will definitely take at least one more week till I'll have Internet at home. If it's urgent, I can look for everything in my webmail account; is it urgent?

> I am finding email an unsatisfactory way to resolve these problems

Why?

> I would like to revive the discussion of the Cellinese et al. proposal. 
> We have seen Phil and Michel propose modifications to the PhyloCode
> about the definition of species, but this does not address the
> proposal, which was to remove species as a special rank in PhyloCode.
> This is what we should be voting on, I think, not merely how to reword
> some articles of the Code.

I posted a long comment several months ago. I'll post it again... as soon as possible.

> One of the most important points of the Cellinese et al. proposal is to
> remove the use of species names as specifiers.  They discuss reasons for
> this in their Systematic Biology paper, including the need for the
> Phylocode to be independent from the existing codes.  It would make
> sense if the PhyloCode could allow the mention of an existing species
> name as a specifier as a short cut for referring to its type specimen.
> But the type specimen should be the legal specifier, not the name.

I agree, and this is what the PhyloCode already says. However, using the name in the definition has the advantage of covering for future changes in which specimen is considered the type. In particular, some well-known animal species described by Linnaeus or shortly after him still have no type at all. This, too, is already mentioned in the PhyloCode.

> It could read:  "In order to facilitate the referral of less
> inclusive clades, as well as specimens that are not specifiers of the
> clade name, the protologue should include a description, diagnosis, or
> list of synapomorphies."

Agreed.