Flag for Taxon: Sweet scabious (Sixalix atropurpurea)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bouteloua | Sweet scabious (Sixalix atropurpurea) |
synonym in POWO |
Aug. 31, 2018 21:57:38 +0000 | jeremygilmore |
See comments |
Comments
Hi!
The latest phylogenetyic works support the separation as distinct genera of Scabiosa and Sixalix:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/32f0/3c0a31e794df139ca9834dec239763575d49.pdf
Fact that is in line with morphological oservations.
Moreover, this separation is long accepted in all the Mediterranean basin.
Both names are now present in the iNat taxonomy which is causing confusion and needs to be sorted out. This is a widespread weedy taxon so users in other parts of the world where it occurs need to be considered, also. My view is that, even though it may not be entirely current, POWO should be followed in this instance.
I do not know what happened concerning the taxonomy of this species after I swapped Scabiosa atropurpurea into Sixalix atropurpurea.
Apart this, this swapping is phylogenetically correct and the utilization of Sixalix atropurpurea instead of Scabiosa atropurpurea (or Scabiosa maritima) is widely accepted in the native range of the species.
Any user, either from the native range of one species, or from where a species is a weed, should be up-to-date as far as literature is concerned. In this light, there are no reasons to recreate Scabiosa atropurpurea, neither the fact that POWO still accepts Scabiosa atropurpurea is not a good reason.
In a database like iNat phylogenetic 'correctness' sometimes has to take a backseat to consistency so that everyone is on the same page. You can hardly expect every iNat user to be au fait with current literature on everything they identify! The more knowledgeable users may consult databases but how are they to choose between conflicting databases? An Australian user would probably consult the Australian Plant Census which, like POWO considers Scabiosa to be the valid genus name of this taxon.
https://biodiversity.org.au/nsl/services/search/name-check
Relying on one agreed authority rather than a plethora of regional authorities is the only way to achieve the necessary consistency. The important thing is to be able to unambiguously pin a name on a taxon. When there is no change in the species concept, then it really doesn't matter that the iNat name is not the most recently proposed one. The iNat authority will eventually update if the argument has merit and the new name becomes generally accepted. POWO seems to keep up with changes reasonably well, from what I've seen.
I just say that an Australian user should not just consult POWO or the Australian Plant Census and the take the decision to recreate an old Euromediterranean taxon without taking into account the reasons why it has been swapped into another.
Exactly the same should not be made by an European user with a foreign species.
I can swear that in its native range, as already written, this taxon is long addressed and accepted as Sixalix atropurpurea being the name from 1985:
http://ww2.bgbm.org/EuroPlusMed/PTaxonDetail.asp?NameCache=Sixalix%20atropurpurea&PTRefFk=7500000
In 2005 it was already in use, as example, as a species of the Italian checklist:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283714806_An_annotated_checklist_of_the_Italian_vascular_flora
I wonder why in POWO it is still under Scabiosa and why here we should still use an old name.
Sounds like you or Euro+Med should take it up with POWO - the fact remains that POWO is the iNat authority and should be deferred to for the reasons I cited earlier. Not ideal, certainly, but the situation for plants is very much better than for some groups such as fishes where the authority, Fishbase, is many, many years out of date and yet is deferred to as the arbiter so that there is a common understanding amongst iNat users.
Plants, and several of groups on iNat, have the qualifier of the possibility of explicit deviations from the listed authority.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1X5c_cYX7S32UwEoZmk65rPYi9F_tsTc68vCnPp6clN4/htmlview#gid=0
Here's the deviation for maintaining Sixalix as distinct from Scabiosa https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_framework_relationships/179696
@loarie it looks like the deviation you documented does not include Sixalix atropurpurea, the topic of this flag and discussion. Should we add the species to the deviation, and regraft it from Scabiosa to Sixalix? Right now it is grafted under a non-matching genus.
Thanks for catching that is this better? https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/372376/taxonomy_details I regrafted Sixalix atropurpurea to Sixalix and combined the TFRs
Also more generally does that TFR acurately map all the Scabiosa (sensu POWO) species that we are putting in Sixalix or are more missing? (I know some ssp/var are missing which can/should be added aswell, but was asking about species to start with)
Thanks @loarie. On the question of what else may be missing, I defer to @blue_celery or others who know these genera better.
Just a side note on the TFR display -- In the graphic portion of the display, I notice that the internal taxa get arranged alphabetically, but are more random on the external side of the display (the list below is alphabetic on both sides). For comparing long many-to-many lists, it would be helpful if the graphics were arranged alphabetically on both sides (understanding, of course, that the epithets won't always be the same between two different genera).
my goal with the sorting was to have clades line up so that if you connected them with lines like this https://inaturalist.github.io/trees/tree_figure.html?tfr_id=335869 the lines cross as little as possible (which makes them more readable). I didn't get it perfect and it could certainly be improved. But I did purposely avoid alphabetic on both sides because it does make for it so that neighbors on one side tend not to be neighbors on the other which increases the line-crossing / difficult seeing corresponding clades on both sides. But yes, in this case the sorting is certainly not optimal so the sort could def be improved
Got it -- this one is certainly not among the more complex cases you have to deal with, for sure!
Discussion/problem solved?
This seems to be sorted - any comments or can it be closed? Will do so over the weekend unless there are any comments/someone else resolves the flag before then...
@bouteloua @blue_celery @rfoster @loarie @jdmore @greek_cicada_project @jeremygilmore : has anyone sent a feedback to POWO about this ?
Not I
Nor did I
@bouteloua @blue_celery @rfoster @loarie @jdmore @greek_cicada_project @jeremygilmore : can any of you send a feedback to POWO with relevant literature ?
See : https://powo.science.kew.org/contact
Sixalix atropurpurea is listed as a synonym of Scabiosa atropurpurea in Plants of the World Online, iNaturalist's global authority for vascular plants.
However, I see that you recently went the other way in a taxon swap (Scabiosa-->Sixalix), based on Euro+Med, @blue_celery. Can you comment on whether we should a) treat this taxon as an explicit devitation from POWO, or b) just follow POWO and switch it back to Scabiosa?
Thanks!
http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:915497-1
http://ww2.bgbm.org/EuroPlusMed/PTaxonDetail.asp?NameCache=Sixalix%20atropurpurea&PTRefFk=7500000
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes/35455