Common Names and Fungi

[myxomop]

I am seeing a number of common names for fungi on iNat which I have never come across before, adding to the pile of existing and equally arbitrary common names sprinkled throughout the web and popular field guides.  Authors of said guides will occasionally freely admit that these names were fabricated to appease a publisher, and in some cases, produced only after intense inebriation to send the nonsense gland into psychoactive overdrive.  Most of these names are of no use to practicing mycologists, and since they are not standardized (as in ornothology), and are subject to regional variation.  There is a recent social media trend of concocting deliberately ridiculous and misleading common names.  As has been proposed elsewhere on this Google Group (apparently several times), it would be very helpful to be able to turn these names off in one's user preferences, or at least make them only appear after the Latin name.

[Mark Rosenstein]

I know that this feature has been requested several times before.  The usual response is that iNat's primary mission is to connect people with nature, and most people prefer familiar common names, so featuring the scientific names is just not a priority.  However, I've also heard that you would like to attract and retain more experts in specific areas to iNat.  I think the emphasis on common names is a turnoff to many experts.

So here's another request to have a per-user preference for whether the most prominently displayed name of each taxon should be a common name or the scientific name.

-Mark

[Scott Loarie]

On this earlier thread on this topic https://groups.google.com/d/msg/inaturalist/y7bfvoa4m2I/IeLsQhRaAgAJ I asked if folks would be ok with a 'scientific name only' solution which would be easier than a 'switching common and scientific name' solution which would be hard. The former (easy) would just entail dropping common names. The latter (hard) would entail coming up with new ways to render names. 

I didn't really get any specific input with regards to those two alternatives, so I didn't follow up.

But if 'scientific names only' works for those concerned it would be pretty easy to do. In fact you can fake it by choosing a language from your account settings that doesn't have many common names in that language. The result on the presentation of names is that you just get scientific names. For example, here's how obs search looks after choosing 'Bulgarian' as my language:

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Scott R. Loarie, Ph.D.
Co-director, iNaturalist.org
California Academy of Sciences
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[myxomop]

I would be interested in a scientific names only option, though preferably not at the expense of random parts of the site being in Bulgarian.

On Wednesday, September 6, 2017 at 6:01:56 PM UTC-4, Scott Loarie wrote:

On this earlier thread on this topic https://groups.google.com/d/msg/inaturalist/y7bfvoa4m2I/IeLsQhRaAgAJ I asked if folks would be ok with a 'scientific name only' solution which would be easier than a 'switching common and scientific name' solution which would be hard. The former (easy) would just entail dropping common names. The latter (hard) would entail coming up with new ways to render names. 

I didn't really get any specific input with regards to those two alternatives, so I didn't follow up.

But if 'scientific names only' works for those concerned it would be pretty easy to do. In fact you can fake it by choosing a language from your account settings that doesn't have many common names in that language. The result on the presentation of names is that you just get scientific names. For example, here's how obs search looks after choosing 'Bulgarian' as my language:

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 2:41 PM, Mark Rosenstein <mara...@gmail.com> wrote:

I know that this feature has been requested several times before.  The usual response is that iNat's primary mission is to connect people with nature, and most people prefer familiar common names, so featuring the scientific names is just not a priority.  However, I've also heard that you would like to attract and retain more experts in specific areas to iNat.  I think the emphasis on common names is a turnoff to many experts.

So here's another request to have a per-user preference for whether the most prominently displayed name of each taxon should be a common name or the scientific name.

-Mark

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[bouteloua]

Not ideal for all taxa, but I also would be interested even in the scientific names-only option with the rest of the site's text in the language of my choice :)

[Mark Rosenstein]

The scientific name only approach is less than ideal for me.  It is fine in the areas where I am an expert (i.e. fish and some butterfly families), though displaying the common name as well helps me figure out when people are making strange mistakes because of two unrelated creatures with the same common name.  But I also post observations of many other creatures and even plants, and in the areas I don’t know well, the common names are helpful. 

-Mark

[James Bailey]

As long as you can tell me that "totally tedious tubaria" is not the real common name for Tubaria furfuracea, I'll be happy :)

I think we as a collective source (iNat database) should be allowed to "pick and choose" so that the common name we use is accurate for the species. I will default to the most frequently used or well-coined name. In the case of many, I go with the one that makes the most sense (pink-barred lithacodia, a moth, makes no sense now since it is now longer lithacodia, and I'd argue having latin in the "English name" doesn't qualify for a real common name).

This is actually one of the leading causes of "arbitrary name creation", but the goal is to create a database of consistent and accurate names, so that possibility does need to be measured.

[Mirko Schoenitz]

I'd use the scientific name only option, if it was available.  The constantly and from my perspective arbitrarily changing "common names" are more of an impediment to learning than getting used to the Latin in the first place. 

However, regarding name rendering: a related situation may be unidentified observations with placeholders.  In the identification tool, as of now they display as [HUGE]Unknown[/HUGE], [tiny]house sparow[/tiny].  Clearly, the observer had a pretty good idea what they were looking at and just made a typo.  I can't count the times I've missed these kinds of initial ID's and then unnecessarily added "Birds".

This is all to say that this situation would equally benefit from rendering names differently: simply swapping what is displayed first, in bold with what is currently tiny, and grayed out would serve the folks who like to focus on scientific names as well as emphasize initial typoed IDs.

Mirko

On Wednesday, September 6, 2017 at 6:01:56 PM UTC-4, Scott Loarie wrote:

[bouteloua]

Hi! A "scientific names only" option was introduced recently.

Head to your account settings > Taxonomy Settings > uncheck box that says "Show Common Names" > scroll to bottom and hit Save.

https://www.inaturalist.org/users/edit

cassi

[ja_c...@hotmail.com]

Thank you!

That will keep my blood pressure down a bit.

Although I would add that common names for the higher ranks of fungi are generally misleading and perhaps shouldn't be allowed at all.

For example, there are many fungi in orders other than polypores that have pores, many in orders other than pezizales that are cup-shaped, and so on.

In general the gross morphology of fungi is a poor indicator of evolutionary relationships. Sure, these are useful collective terms, but they cannot be linked one-to-one to a taxonomic hierarchy in the way that iNat links common names to scientific names.

Having those common names for higher taxa means that people choose them on morphological grounds and so are being misled and learning incorrect associations.

Not a big deal, but it add a little to my blood pressure level when I see them.

 

Jerry

[Charlie Hohn]

common names are cultural artifacts. They are wrong all the time. They are wrong in plants too. Douglas fir isn't a fir, etc. IMHO trying to fix them is pointless and trying to stop people from using them just turns people off and also disconnects cultural references from the species. Teach primarily in scientific names if it seems best but please don't delete any here... 

[ja_c...@hotmail.com]

That may be true for plants but not for fungi  - which was the original subject of this thread. There are relatively few 'cultural references' for common names (or collective terms) for fungi and nearly none for higher taxa. As a previous commentator says, most common names for fungi are made up (relatively recently) by people writing field guides to appease publishers who believe books won't sell without them. Clearly not true as many lay people use scientific names all the time without realizing it - Rhododendron, Forsythia etc.

[Charlie Hohn]

i get what you are saying and i guess what i am saying is that i don't think common names of plants that are actually well-used should be deleted because they aren't technically taxonomicaly accurate. There are people doing that stuff and it's annoying and causes problems (more so in other places than iNat but could happen here too). I don't know enough about fungi yet to feel too strongly about their common names, but usually iNat admins don't want different standards for different taxa at least as i understand.

[bouteloua]

Jerry, as far as order Polyporales, looks like the default common name for that is "shelf fungi" on iNat. Is that a bad name? (excuse my mycological ignorance...) "Polypores" is an alternative common name on iNat, but not set as the default for any country/place. Order Pezizales is not listed with any English common name.

But do flag the taxon for curation whenever you do see nonsense, generally unaccepted, overly vague, or misleading common names (or if you are a curator, you can fix yourself :) Curator guidelines: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#names

[ja_c...@hotmail.com]

Ok - rank slip. 

Cup fungi = family pezizaceae 

Shelf (fungi) polypores = polyporales is doubly dubious

I am a curator, and do a lot of work on the fungal taxonomy, but I leave common names alone. As you can tell, I am deeply skeptical of them (for fungi).

[James Bailey]

Common names are important for social outreach...getting people interested. LOTS of people are not interested in starting off with scientific names, and by not applying them (to fungi) you are creating a barricade to a lot of people. "Fly agaric" is much more fun and relatable than "Amanita muscaria" for 90% of the English speaking population. "Artist's bracket" for "Ganoderma applanatum". And so on.

One problem I encounter is that a lot of fields are dominated by professionals and experts and there is a lot of intimidation for others to become interested. You might argue that anyone who doesn't want to learn scientific names straight off may not be worth even walking into the field but I don't think that is fair. I've introduced people to topics and they still explore them to this day, and even voucher specimens. If I had stepped up and started using scientific names, which they forgot entirely by the end of the first day, they would not have held interest.

This is a bit "off loop" but I think common names are really a part of the cultural heritage of biology. We might not like them, but they have many positives too. Common names can be misleading but that's fine. They aren't used to determine a species' place on a taxonomic tree, so if a non-ash is called an ash it shouldn't matter. As long as the common names for each species are unique.

[GanCW]

I fully agree with you.

[ja_c...@hotmail.com]

I have no problem with Fly Agaric for a species common name. It has a long tradition, and there are a number of useful traditional species-level common names for the relatively few species that can be accurately identified in the field and with photos.  I support their use for exactly the reasons stated.  However, for a further example, I do have a problem with the common name for the ORDER the Fly Agaric sits in. The Agaricales has the common name Gilled Mushrooms. Such terms aren't really common names, they are an attempt to provide a useful collective descriptive term for the species under them, and as such they fail. Many of the macro features of fungi, like gills, pores etc are the consequence of convergent evolution and they occur in many quite unrelated species. So, a term like Gilled Mushrooms should not be tied one-to-one into the fungal taxonomic hierarchy.  The assertion that Agaricales = Gilled Mushrooms only works some of the time, and is misleading. People ARE using these terms to incorrectly place an observation on the taxonomic tree. From my perspective no big deal, and I will correctly place them at species level if I can. That does nothing to get across the fact that gilled mushrooms aren't all in the agaricales and a learning opportunity is lost. 

I will stop at that point. The iNat community is great and I'm happy to provide what support I can. The community should drive the development of what it feels it needs, not pedantic taxonomists.

Jerry

[tony rebelo]

I often lead Botanical Society walks for the public.  The Southern African Botanical Society old codgers (and that is 95% of members) deplore common names and exclusively use scientific names.  It is almost a badge of membership.  But the general public glaze over at the first mention of a scientific name, and by the third one they are no longer interested at all.  At that point one has to quickly invent a few names on the fly and they all nod sagely and get really excited asking quite perceptive questions. Quite a few of these names stick, and surprizingly pop up in unexpected places like newspaper articles and commentaries for the area.  The point is the public want names that can relate to, even if it did not exist 5 minutes ago.  Our national flower has a dozen common names which all get used at different times by different groups. So what is wrong with that?

In Natal, where there is a strong English tradition, the botanical guides all know the English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Latin names for EVERY plant, and - where appropriate - additional names for different parts (e.g. where they are used medicinally) - and in the south the Xhosa name as well.  Where these names came from is anyone's guess, but they are now part of the botanical culture.  Who would have guessed that 250 years ago almost none of these plants had an English, Afrikaans or Scientific name.  During this period someone invented all these names!

So what is wrong with carrying on and completing this task?

Every year thousands of Capetonians take to the streets on rainy evenings in August to help rescue the Western Leopard Toad during its mating migration.  Almost none of them know the scientific name and dont care too hoots what it is:it is utterly irrelevant to the entire community.

Specific to fungi: our local ZA field guides have over 70% of entries with common names, the more recent guide including several names within a language for some species.   If editors and publishers know what sells a book and ask authors to invent them, then clearly they are serving a public need.

    

Expecting unique names though is a tough one.  Whose name becomes correct, and which communities are wrong in using that name?  Scientific names are for preventing confusion: vernaculars are for daily communication.  Locally common names do tend to be unique, but between regions or groups this is not true.  There are legal issues: such as when a product is unavailable and another with the same common name is substituted.  In the old days all doctors did a full degree in botany as well - today they dont even need Latin to practice medicine and dispense drugs: most doctors today would use common names and not be able to tell you where salicylic acid came from.

Like it or leave it but he popularization of science is about vernacular names: how many birders today could tell you the Latin Names? - 50 years ago the lingua franca was the scientific name.  Why should plants or fungi be any different? 

[James Bailey]

Jerry you raised a great point regarded more inclusive taxonomic levels. It is hard to define those levels, while still keeping them..."relatable", as is the case with common names for species or families. 

I think there is also user fault -- making assumptions is always dangerous in biology and I don't think there is an easy to fix people falling into this trap. For instance, assuming something called "daisy" is a member of the daisy family, assuming a "sparrow" is a member of the old world sparrow family. This is similar to your note of calling Agaricales "gilled mushrooms", and people thinking all gilled mushrooms must be Agaricales. 

We have to hope that any enthusiast will quickly learn common names are to be taken with a grain of salt, and certainly should not be used as a replacement for the scientific name except largely in communication to the general public.