Multiple senior synonyms

[Mark Wilden]

AntCat has multiple senior synonyms for about 200 taxa. Example: http://localhost:3000/catalog/430353

How should AntCat represent this line in the history:

Junior synonym of Acromyrmex landolti: Gonçalves, 1961: 120; of Acromyrmex balzani: Fowler, 1988b: 284. 

It appears to me that here Barry is just recording what was said by Goncalves and Fowler without choosing among them.

To fix this, I suppose we would choose one of the two as the "real" senior synonym? Which one? The latest one? The valid one? (in this case, they're both valid)

[Marek Borowiec]

Hi Mark,

For some reason your links don't work for me.

I think in cases like this we need to have entirety of the history preserved but, if for some reason we need to deal with this automatically and have a list of "current junior synonyms" of A. balzani, for example, we should assume the latest taxonomic decision to represent the current status.

So in this example Acromyrmex nivalis is a junior synonym of A. balzani but we still want to keep the record that Gonçalves considered it a synonym of A. landolti.

Does this make sense? Would anyone disagree?

Marek

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Marek L. Borowiec
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[Phil Ward]

Yes. I agree. The latest decision seems to have been generally accepted by Bolton, and we should do the same.

 

Phil Ward

[Brian L. Fisher]

Mark,

Following up on your message, the issue is not with the taxonomic history, where it is fine to indicate that a taxa was synonymized twice.  Thus I don't think you should change how the taxonomic history is displayed.  What needs to be changes is the part that follows header:  This is where it should be clearly stated the current valid name.  In your example: http://antcat.org/catalog/430353

Acromyrmex landolti nivalisSantschi, 1922synonym of Acromyrmex landolti, Acromyrmex balzani

Acromyrmex landolti var. nivalis Santschi, 1922c: 362 (w.) BRAZIL. AntWeb AntWiki 

Junior synonym of Acromyrmex landolti: Gonçalves, 1961: 120; of Acromyrmex balzani: Fowler, 1988b: 284.

should be:

Acromyrmex landolti nivalisSantschi, 1922synonym of Acromyrmex balzani

Acromyrmex landolti var. nivalis Santschi, 1922c: 362 (w.) BRAZIL. AntWeb AntWiki 

Junior synonym of Acromyrmex landolti: Gonçalves, 1961: 120; of Acromyrmex balzani: Fowler, 1988b: 284.

However, if the most recent synonym is not the current valid name, then the current valid name should be included in the header.

Brian 

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Brian Fisher

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California Academy of Sciences

San Francisco, CA 94118, USA

www.antweb.org

[Mark Wilden]

Just to be clear, I wasn't proposing changing the taxonomic history. My question was strictly about displaying the current valid taxon at the top of the catalog page. 

OK, I'll do it like this: the current valid name is that of the latest "senior synonym", unless it's invalid, then I use the next latest, and so on. If there is no valid "senior synonym", I'll let you guys know and you can fill in the new "current valid taxon" field as you wish. That field should be ready for use today or tomorrow.

[Blum, Stan]

That sounds perfect, Mark.

-Stan

From: Mark Wilden <ma...@mwilden.com>
Reply-To: "ant...@googlegroups.com" <ant...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, December 8, 2013 8:25 AM
To: AntCat <ant...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [AntCat] Multiple senior synonyms

Just to be clear, I wasn't proposing changing the taxonomic history. My question was strictly about displaying the current valid taxon at the top of the catalog page. 

OK, I'll do it like this: the current valid name is that of the latest "senior synonym", unless it's invalid, then I use the next latest, and so on. If there is no valid "senior synonym", I'll let you guys know and you can fill in the new "current valid taxon" field as you wish. That field should be ready for use today or tomorrow.

On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 4:00 AM, Brian L. Fisher <bfi...@calacademy.org> wrote:

Mark,

Following up on your message, the issue is not with the taxonomic history, where it is fine to indicate that a taxa was synonymized twice.  Thus I don't think you should change how the taxonomic history is displayed.  What needs to be changes is the part that follows header:  This is where it should be clearly stated the current valid name.  In your example: http://antcat.org/catalog/430353

Acromyrmex landolti nivalisSantschi, 1922synonym of Acromyrmex landolti, Acromyrmex balzani

Acromyrmex landolti var. nivalis Santschi, 1922c: 362 (w.) BRAZIL. AntWeb AntWiki 

Junior synonym of Acromyrmex landolti: Gonçalves, 1961: 120; of Acromyrmex balzani: Fowler, 1988b: 284.

should be:

Acromyrmex landolti nivalisSantschi, 1922synonym of Acromyrmex balzani

Acromyrmex landolti var. nivalis Santschi, 1922c: 362 (w.) BRAZIL. AntWeb AntWiki 

Junior synonym of Acromyrmex landolti: Gonçalves, 1961: 120; of Acromyrmex balzani: Fowler, 1988b: 284.

However, if the most recent synonym is not the current valid name, then the current valid name should be included in the header.

Brian 

On Thu, Dec 5, 2013 at 2:57 PM, Mark Wilden <ma...@mwilden.com> wrote:

AntCat has multiple senior synonyms for about 200 taxa. Example: http://localhost:3000/catalog/430353

How should AntCat represent this line in the history:

Junior synonym of Acromyrmex landolti: Gonçalves, 1961: 120; of Acromyrmexbalzani: Fowler, 1988b: 284. 

[Steve Shattuck]

Hi Guys,

In response to: OK, I'll do it like this: the current valid name is that of the latest "senior synonym", unless it's invalid, then I use the next latest, and so on. If there is no valid "senior synonym", I'll let you guys know and you can fill in the new "current valid taxon" field as you wish. That field should be ready for use today or tomorrow.

No, this isn't quite right.  The valid name for the first synonym will be the valid name for the second synonym (the synonym to which this name is a synonym).  You need to follow the chain of synonymy until you hit a valid name.

Think of it as the logical "If A=B and B=C then A=C".

So if Aus is a junior synonym of Bus, and Bus is a junior synonym of Cus, then Aus is a junior synonym of Cus and Cus is its valid name (even if no one as specifically stated this, it's implied by the second synonymy - yes, it's sloppy taxonomy but it's better to assume this is the case rather than reinstate an older synonymy, and it deals with situations where there is no older synonymy, so it works in all cases).

We sorted the "synonyms of synonyms" situation out when parsing the NGC for AntWiki and you can download our interpretation (as a tab-delimited file) from http://www.antwiki.org/wiki/File:AntWiki_Invalid_Species.txt.   The TaxonName column has the junior name (synonym, homonym, etc) with its senior name in the CurrentPlacement column.  The CurrentStatus column gives the reason for the junior name being invalid. 

Please feel free to use this file if it's helpful.  If you find anything weird let me know and I'll see if I can sort it out.  Parsing these data from the NGC was a total pain and we ended up manually checking everything to make sure we got it right, but something could have easily been overlooked. 

Hope this helps, and keep up the great work, Steve

[Mark Wilden]

Thanks for the input, Steve. I had actually just started on dealing with the "synonym of a synonym" issue, which has been on my list for literally years. :)