[CPN] Article 21

[Michel Laurin]

I am also fine with the proposal, and with much of what David proposes 
to change, with one exception: I don't know if it is a good idea to 
introduce recommendations about species names (i.e. requesting that 
authors state which species concept they use) in a code like ours that 
does not rule species names. Seems incoherent. The rank-based codes 
would be the proper place to introduce these changes (but I realize that 
they probably won't do that, not anytime soon anyway).

Cheers,

Michel

On 17/03/13 00:04, David Marjanovic wrote:
> I'm fine with most of the proposal; much of it is identical to my
> proposal from May 12th (yes, it's been a long time), and some of it is
> probably better (e. g. I proposed to work Note 21.1.1 into Art. 21.1,
> the new proposal just deletes it, and I agree with the reason stated there).
>
> However...
>
> First, the big one: the proposal still talks about "infraspecific names"
> without taking into account that, once the PhyloCode is implemented,
> there may be two kinds of such names: rank-based ones, and
> PhyloCode-governed ones that have either been assigned subspecies rank
> or that happen to designate a clade that lies within a species. Only the
> former are intended, but both are implied. For this reason (though I
> failed to make _that_ clear), I proposed a new Note:
>
> "Note 21.1.1. In any particular classification, a species or
> infraspecific taxon may be identical in content to a clade, and a clade
> may be assigned the rank of species or that of an infraspecific
> category. In such cases, intercode synonymy may occur between this code
> and a rank-based one, because names governed by this code have a
> different form from specific or infraspecific names governed by the
> ICNP, ICN or ICZN. However, such redundancy is likely to be limited:
> assigning a rank to a clade name is not a nomenclatural act under this
> code, and the rank-based codes do not recognize the adoption of any
> species concept as a nomenclatural act -- under most species concepts,
> species need not be clades. This situation is similar to monospecific
> genera under the rank-based codes (cases where a genus and its type
> species are identical in content in a particular classification)."
>
> In this, "a species or infraspecific taxon" in the first sentence should
> rather be "a taxon with a rank-based name at species or infraspecific
> rank", and of course I'd be fine with, say, ending the first sentence
> with "a clade may be assigned species or infraspecific rank".
>
> Digging this up also reminded me that it's not called ICBN anymore. It's
> now "International Code of Nomenclature of algae, plants and fungi",
> assuming the 2012 Code has been printed at last. I'll look that up
> tomorrow, and I'll look up if the change from "Bacteria" to
> "Prokaryotes" is now official as well.
>
> The new Art. 21.3 comes with a note in the proposal: "[The last sentence
> refers to ICZN Art. 11.4.]" Then why not just say so: "For names
> governed by the ICZN, this practice must be followed throughout the
> publication that establishes the name (ICZN Art. 11.4)."
>
> The first sentence of the new Art. 21.4 contains the phrase "may be
> treated as the name of the species under this code, termed a species
> uninomen". Given that this code doesn't govern species names, do we
> really want to say there is such a thing as "the name of the species
> under this code"? How about "may be treated as the _de facto_ name of
> the species, termed a species uninomen"?
>
> Example 1 to Note 21.4B.1 lacks the year at the first opportunity, right
> after the Note says the year is commonly cited under the ICZN.
>
> I'll interpret Note 21A.1 as allowing any agreement; thus, I'm looking
> forward to *Discodorididae sandiegenses*! That should make some heads
> explode! ;-)
>
> Finally, I proposed a new recommendation to deal with a pet peeve of
> mine. It's not really on topic, and I should propose it to the
> committees that make the rank-based codes (where of course I have much
> less influence), but I think it should receive consideration anyway:
>
> "When establishing a new species name under the appropriate rank-based
> code, the protologue should state which species concept the authors have
> in mind, and it should include a description of the evidence indicating
> that the new species fulfills that concept, even though the rank-based
> codes have no such requirements or recommendations. Names for
> infraspecific taxa should be handled analogously."
>
> If people started adhering to this, it would force people to think about
> species instead of taking them for granted, counting them as a measure
> of biodiversity, referring new specimens to species for implied reasons
> that other authors wouldn't accept if they were explicit, and so on...
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-- 
Michel Laurin
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