Taxonomic Swap 128290
(提交於 2024-09-18)
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評論
@sunwenhao90 @firos_ak @louisb @purnendu @tonyrebelo @stevewoodhall
Almost a month has gone by, so I assume we are ok to proceed? Ok?
Happy to go ...
No objection to the swap, although if I recall correctly there should be a number of other taxa being moved into this genus too (e.g. hecabe)?
T. hecabe is there already:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1482403-Terias
I think this was held back as it had so many records and it is not exclusively African.
Oh: I see what you mean. - there are 7 species to come across, some just as big as this.
But they all also have swaps in waiting, just like this.
Why not just commit them all?
Is it only 7?
As I said in the other thread, absolutely do commit them all - provided you're doing it consistently I've got no problem.
I still can't understand where other Australian Eurema species fall out as a result of that paper though - e.g. Eurema smilax, herla, etc. - I would have thought they would be in the same clade as hecabe & brigitta and thus be moved to Terias, but I've not seen any discussion in that regard.
I suspect that is why these were drafted and not committed. In the hope that someone would object, agree or add clarity. But as so often happens: a lone voice crying in the wilderness ...
That was my problem with the original paper - there was no clarity as to what taxa / clades were affected. And that confusion seems to have carried on to the discussion here.
@louisb this has recently come up in a discussion among LepSoc Africa's taxonomists. I have revisited Zhang et al (2021) and this is the relevant paragraph:
Terias Swainson, 1821 is a valid genus
Our genomic tree reveals that Eurema Hübner, 1819 is paraphyletic with respect to Pyrisitia Butler, 1870 (type species Papilio proterpia Fabricius, 1775) (Fig. 5). To restore monophyly, we choose to keep Pyrisitia as a genus and therefore treat the Old World clade currently placed in Eurema as a distinct valid genus. Terias Swainson, 1821 (type species Papilio hecabe Linnaeus, 1758) is its oldest available name.
Although the Australian species you mention: smilax, herla, etc are not specifically mentioned in the paper, surely Australia is part of the Old World and therefore fall under the 'Old World' clade quoted?
The paper (https://zenodo.org/records/5630311) would have been peer reviewed so one must presume that had a reviewer disagreed with this statement he/she would have raised a red flag and the paper would have been amended accordingly. This did not happen and we must stick to the ICZN rules.
The names are registered with Zoobank (ICZN) so they have priority. Someone is thinking of disagreeing but I don't think they've submitted a peer reviewed revision to the ICZN yet.
Can we please get on with the taxon swap?
I now have a copy of the brigitta paper that disagrees with Zhang et al: Irungbam, M., Irungbam, J.S., Rindos, M., Maresova, J.P. & Fric, Z.F. (2023) Phylogeography of the small grass yellow Eurema brigitta (Stoll, 1780) (Lepidoptera: Pieridae) unveils the existence of distinct taxa within the Palaeotropics. Austral Entomology, 62(4), 410–417. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/aen.12665
It's a well argued paper that sets out the reasons for re-erecting Eurema drona (Horsfield, [1829]) for the Oriental-Australian populations hitherto known as Eurema brigitta. There are a lot of subspecies that will complicate things somewhat:
The following taxa all fall under the binomial E. brigitta in iNaturalist:
• E. b. brigitta – tropical Africa (stays as is) – 765 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. pulchella (Boisduval, 1833) – Madagascar, Mauritius, Comoro Islands, Aldabra Islands (stays as is) – 18 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. drona (Horsfield, [1829]) – Sumatra, Java to Lombok (now E. drona drona) 0 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. senna (C.&R.Felder, [1865]) – Peninsular Malaya, Singapore, Indochina (now E. drona senna) 0 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. fruhstorferi (Moore, 1906) – eastern Indo-China (now E. drona fruhstorferi) 0 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. ina Eliot, 1956 – southern Sulawesi (now E. drona ina) 0 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. hainana (Moore, 1878) – Hainan (now E. drona hainana) 14 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. rubella (Wallace, 1867) – Sri Lanka, India, Burma to southern China, Nicobars (now E. drona rubella) 65 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. formosana Matsumura, 1919 – Taiwan (now E. drona formosana) 0 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. yunnana (Mell) (now E. drona yunnana) 0 observations in iNaturalist
• E. b. australis (Wallace, 1867) – Australia, New Guinea, Papua New Guinea (now E. drona australis) 0 observations in iNaturalist
There are 2408 Eurema brigitta binomial records in iNat stretching from West Africa to Fiji, with a few from Central America (those must be erroneous!) There are no records for Eurema drona which is not surprising since it doesn’t yet have a taxon number. Some of the ‘comb. nov’ subspecific names in the taxonomy section of the paper don’t exist in iNaturalist either – lema, dionysia, nebulosa, and sincera. These would all need to be flagged separately I guess.
I also see no reference to a Zoobank registration in the paper. How is the ICZN going to handle the decision to ignore Zhang et al’s names? From what little I know of the ICZN rules their treatment of these taxa as ‘Terias’ has preference, no matter how much we may disapprove of them. Surely these new Eurema names will be nomina nuda?
One of the authors in a personal communication referred to Zhang et al as 'cowboys' and 'taxonomic vandals'. Also the reviewers at the Journal of Austral Entomology didn't pick up on the priority of Terias for these names. This has made water that is already cloudy even muddier!
Again, Africa is being bogged down by Asian and Australasian issues.
My vote is clean up Africa, and let the rest of the Old World catch up when they can find the resources.
These would all need to be flagged separately I guess.
No: rather just list them en block under the genus or species, as is most appropriate.
In this case a single flag under Eurema brigitta (or alternatively ?? under Terias brigitta) will deal with the issue.
@tonyrebelo does that mean the African Eurema can all be swapped to Terias and to hell with this paper? If we do that there will be consequences for the Oriental and Australian guys beyond E/T brigitta. There's hecabe as well. As far as I'm concerned Zhang et al has precedence under IUCN and all those new names in Irungbam et al are nomina nuda anyway. Ignoring Zhang et al is their problem not ours! That means the curator should go ahead and damn the consequences.
@tonyrebelo 'In this case a single flag under Eurema brigitta (or alternatively ?? under Terias brigitta) will deal with the issue.' I'd be a bit reluctant to do that since as result Terias drona would need to be created as a new name (as well as all its subspecies) and at present we don't know what its ICZN status is.
@stevewoodhall - you are not a curator. You simply flag it. Up to the curators to operationalize it.
Our problem here is simply that we dont have a tame, trained curator ...
There is absolutely no requirement, as far as I know, for iNaturalist taxonomy (i.e., curators) to blindly follow the literature. A peer-reviewed taxonomic paper only presents taxonomic hypotheses (and justifications for why those hypotheses may (or may not) be supported). Indeed, iNat taxonomy is often at odds with the taxonomic literature - there are many cases I could name for birds (which, granted, is partly because iNat adopts Clements taxonomy for that group - but still, the point remains). Given there is now disagreement in the literature between Zhang et al. and Irungbam et al. (which I've not yet read) as to how Eurema (sensu lato) should be arranged, I see even less reason than before to adopt any changes suggested by the former, particularly since I am still yet to see a clear list of which taxa fall under what new classifications (i.e., I do not know what taxon changes need to be made). I appreciate @stevewoodhall giving a summary of the suggestions of Irungbam et al., but am equally going to (personally) hold off on making any changes to that group until a) I have read the paper b) I can properly determine what changes it suggests and c) we (collectively, as curators/users with an interest in this group) can decide on which option to follow in instances where there is disagreement between 1) the status quo 2) Zhang et al. and 3) Irungbam et al.
@stevewoodhall Could you send me a copy of the Irungbam et al. paper?
So, now that I've read the Irungbam et al. paper, I see no explicit disagreement as they don't address Zhang et al.'s taxonomic changes (there's no citation even). The paper is concerned with the species status of brigitta/drona and not with the status of the genus.
Thanks to Zhang et al. Old World Eurema = Terias, and so Irungbam is employing a synonym. The stat. rev. of drona is still be valid, but the proper name to employ is T. drona.
Can the swap either be done or the "Terias" taxa inactivated?
We have lots of unnecessary disagreements like this one:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/209742321
And confusion also from Australian iNatters:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/genus-and-species-taxonomy-of-eurema-lepidoptera-pieridae/50831/1
Still no movement.
Am I missing something or is Eurema brigitta (Stoll, 1780) absent from Zhang et al (2021)? The species isn't in Figure 5 and a search for the species brings up no results.
Irungbam et al (2023) is specifically about Eurema brigitta (Stoll, 1780) and concludes: "In addition, in accordance with the genetic pattern and the known morphological evidence, we propose to transfer the Oriental-Australian populations into a separate species, Eurema drona (Horsfield, 1829) reinst. stat."
So, I see several problems with this proposed swap.
The first is that Zhang et al made an arbitrary decision to maintain monophyly in their analysis: " To restore monophyly, we choose to keep Pyrisitia as a genus and therefore treat the Old World clade currently placed in Eurema as a distinct valid genus. Terias Swainson, 1821 (type species Papilio hecabe Linnaeus, 1758) is its oldest available name." And to recognise Terias Swainson, 1821 as having priority for the new grouping. That is all fine and dandy, and their proposed "further refinements" to butterfly taxonomy is based on "all protein-coding genes as they are retrieved from the whole genome shotgun sequences for phylogeny construction".
Sounds impressive but it is a massive paper with many 'refinements' that may or may not be useful for understanding the evolution of butterflies. Taxonomy is unusual for a science in that arguments from authority are common, but there are often several authorities with different views; and of course, arguments from authority are a form of logical fallacy. So this leads to my other major concern. A primary purpose of an International Code for nomenclature is stability - not monophyly. 'Gene trees are not species trees' - is something we need to always keep in mind, especially as we learn more and more about how common reticulate evolution is and has been.
So in terms of Eurema brigitta, I think it is too early to swap to Terias brigitta. First because Zhang et al's solution may not hold up with further research and they apparently did not use E. brigitta in their analysis. Second because Oriental-Asian populations may deserve a distinct species name (as recently occurred in the Fuscous Swallowtail). Third because stability is important - just think of all those Australian butterfly field guides that will suddenly be out of sync with iNat. How are we iNat users benefitting from this change, which may change again and again in the near future?
.1. It is no longer "proposed" - it is done.
.2. field guides out of sync: no the synonomy on iNat caters for out of date field guides: type in "Eurema brigitta" as per the past, and iNat will happily accept it and record it as "Terias brigitta". So long as the taxon is the same (and was not split), then iNat works superbly at being backwards compatible.
@sunwenhao90 @firos_ak @louisb
I've tagged you because you've shown past activity related to this taxon. Any concerns with this change? Do you know of anyone active in your geographical spheres that may want to have input before this is committed.
@tonyrebelo @stevewoodhall