Mammalian species and the twofold nature of taxonomy: a comment on Taylor et al. 2019

Zachos, Frank E.; Christidis, Les; Garnett, Stephen T.

doi:10.1515/mammalia-2019-0009

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The second pitfall is thinking of taxa as 'real' items in nature that are 'discovered' by taxonomists, implying that the taxa are 'out there in nature' before they are 'found'. A more accurate and only slightly more cumbersome rephrasing would be to say that a taxon is 'delimited', 'resolved' or 'recognised' as new (Zachos et al, 2020), a phraseology that gives more agency to the taxonomist than the more passive action of 'finding'. This pitfall is an example of the common epistemological problem expressed in the aphorism 'the map is not the territory' (Korzybski, 1933): it mixes the abstraction (taxa) with reality (the patterns of variation in nature), a classic map-territory confusion.…”

Section: Taxonomy As 'Map-making'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a global list of accepted species I. Why taxonomists sometimes disagree, and why this matters

et al. 2021

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Taxonomy-the delimitation, naming, classification and documentation of species and other taxa-is an often-misunderstood discipline. Complex and at times contested, taxonomy occupies a sometimes discomforting intermediate position on a continuum from descriptive to hypothetico-deductive science. Two aspects of taxonomy that are striking to many observers and users are the degree to which taxonomists often disagree, and the degree of taxonomic revisionism (the replacement of one taxonomic classification with another, exemplified by the phrase 'taxonomists are always changing the names of things'). Disagreements between taxonomists do not usually indicate taxonomic confusion or chaos, but rather often represent valid disagreements over the best, most effective and most meaningful way to interpret, describe and classify one of the most complex systems that scientists seek to describe and characterise-the patterns of variation of life on Earth. One way to partially manage disagreements among taxonomists is to develop a mechanism to synthesise the flux of taxonomic activity into agreed, broadly accepted, authoritative and scientifically robust global lists of the world's species and other taxa. A sound understanding of some aspects of the nature of taxonomy is needed to appreciate the opportunities, complexities and limitations of the development and maintenance of such lists.This article is part of the Special Issue and Topical Collection Towards a global list of accepted species

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Section: Taxonomy As 'Map-making'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a global list of accepted species I. Why taxonomists sometimes disagree, and why this matters

et al. 2021

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“…Lineages can legitimately be delimited by grouping individuals together using diverse criteria, but, if criteria for grouping differ, the resulting taxa are necessarily different kinds of entity [sic]”. Because phylogenetic lineages are composed of other sublineages of populations, deciding which of these many lineages of the same type are species is arbitrary, and “given the same raw data, taxonomists often arrive at different species classifications because there is no single correct taxonomic solution above the level of the population itself” (Zachos et al ., 2019, p. 3).…”

Section: Simply Lineagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Zachos et al . (2019, p. 2) put it: “The Tree of Life, however, is an encaptic system displaying a nested hierarchy with a fractal pattern (lineages within lineages). Lineages can legitimately be delimited by grouping individuals together using diverse criteria, but, if criteria for grouping differ, the resulting taxa are necessarily different kinds of entity [sic]”.…”

Section: Simply Lineagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To take one recent example, Garnett & Christidis (2017) argued that taxonomy has gone off course and called for the control of classification through rules and regulatory committees overseen by the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), triggering a heated debate (e.g. Buckeridge, 2017; Cotterill, Groves & Taylor, 2017; Dijkstra, 2017; Hollingsworth, 2017; Jackson, Scherz & Zona, 2017; Lambertz, 2017; Takeda, 2017; Thomson et al ., 2018; Zachos, 2018; Taylor, Denys & Cotterill, 2019; Zachos, Christidis & Garnett, 2019; Garnett et al ., 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A paradigm shift in our view of species drives current trends in biological classification

Padial

Riva

2020

Biological Reviews

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Discontent about changes in species classifications has grown in recent years. Many of these changes are seen as arbitrary, stemming from unjustified conceptual and methodological grounds, or leading to species that are less distinct than those recognised in the past. We argue that current trends in species classification are the result of a paradigm shift toward which systematics and population genetics have converged and that regards species as the phylogenetic lineages that form the branches of the Tree of Life. Species delimitation now consists of determining which populations belong to which individual phylogenetic lineage. This requires inferences on the process of lineage splitting and divergence, a process to which we have only partial access through incidental evidence and assumptions that are themselves subject to refutation. This approach is not free of problems, as horizontal gene transfer, introgression, hybridisation, incorrect assumptions, sampling and methodological biases can mislead inferences of phylogenetic lineages. Increasing precision is demanded through the identification of both sister relationships and processes blurring or mimicking phylogeny, which has triggered, on the one hand, the development of methods that explicitly address such processes and, on the other hand, an increase in geographical and character data sampling necessary to infer/test such processes. Although our resolving power has increased, our knowledge of sister relationships – what we designate as species resolution – remains poor for many taxa and areas, which biases species limits and perceptions about how divergent species are or ought to be. We attribute to this conceptual shift the demise of trinominal nomenclature we are witnessing with the rise of subspecies to species or their rejection altogether; subspecies are raised to species if they are found to correspond to phylogenetic lineages, while they are rejected as fabricated taxa if they reflect arbitrary partitions of continuous or non‐hereditary variation. Conservation strategies, if based on taxa, should emphasise species and reduce the use of subspecies to avoid preserving arbitrary partitions of continuous variation; local variation is best preserved by focusing on biological processes generating ecosystem resilience and diversity rather than by formally naming diagnosable units of any kind. Since many binomials still designate complexes of species rather than individual species, many species have been discovered but not named, geographical sampling is sparse, gene lineages have been mistaken for species, plenty of species limits remain untested, and many groups and areas lack adequate species resolution, we cannot avoid frequent changes to classifications as we address these problems. Changes will not only affect neglected taxa or areas, but also popular ones and regions where taxonomic research remained dormant for decades and old classifications were taken for granted.

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“…However, people eking out livelihoods in those areas who might be affected by protecting habitat that they need to feed their children had no say in what was transparently a subjective process of setting taxonomic thresholds. That the same people could eventually benefit from appropriate conservation investment (see Waldron et al ., 2020) does not detract from the argument that the subjective parts of taxonomy, as opposed to the technical aspects (Zachos et al ., 2019), are inherently political with real‐world consequences.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Are the implications for conservation of a major taxonomic revision of the world’s birds’ simply serendipity?

Garnett

Thomson

2020

Animal Conservation

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Mammalian species and the twofold nature of taxonomy: a comment on Taylor et al. 2019

Cited by 16 publications

References 24 publications

Towards a global list of accepted species I. Why taxonomists sometimes disagree, and why this matters

Towards a global list of accepted species I. Why taxonomists sometimes disagree, and why this matters

A paradigm shift in our view of species drives current trends in biological classification

Are the implications for conservation of a major taxonomic revision of the world’s birds’ simply serendipity?

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