[CPN] Article 21

Sun Mar 17 10:09:16 EDT 2013

I agree with Michel that we should not introduce rules or recommendations that authors state which species "concept" they are adopting.  In addition to the reasons stated by Michel, that is a taxonomic rather than a nomenclatural issue and therefore does not belong in a nomenclatural code (whether phylogenetic or rank-based).  The appropriate way to handle David's proposal would be to write a paper arguing that it be adopted as sound taxonomic practice.  (I also don't think that most biologists really adopt different species concepts, though they tend to confuse operational criteria with concepts).  

Kevin
________________________________________
From: cpn-bounces at listserv.ohio.edu [cpn-bounces at listserv.ohio.edu] On Behalf Of Michel Laurin [michel.laurin at upmc.fr]
Sent: Saturday, March 16, 2013 7:34 PM
To: cpn at listserv.ohio.edu
Subject: Re: [CPN] Article 21

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
UMR 7207
Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
Batiment de Géologie
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FRANCE
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