Biodiversity Information Science and Standards :
Conference Abstract
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Corresponding author: Arthur D Chapman (biodiv_2@achapman.org)
Received: 30 Jul 2022 | Published: 01 Aug 2022
© 2022 Arthur Chapman, Thomas Mesaglio, Guy Taseski
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Chapman AD, Mesaglio T, Taseski G (2022) Formulaic Unpublished Names: The need for a TDWG standard and for the inclusion of such names in apps such as iNaturalist. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards 6: e91062. https://doi.org/10.3897/biss.6.91062
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Names are essential for communication. In biodiversity we have a nomenclature system that has stood the test of time (around 270 years) and, despite some shortcomings, it works. However, the world has changed. Extinction rates have increased rapidly in recent times and are rising at ever increasing rates due to climate change and human neglect. As a result, we need to do everything we can to protect the species that remain and, to do that, we need to be able to communicate about those species. The publishing process is slow, and there is a dearth of taxonomists, so the formal publication for many of these species, especially in the tropics and the New World, cannot keep up with the ever-increasing known unpublished species. It is estimated (
In the 1980s, Australia developed a formulaic naming system for undescribed plant species (
Some have said that this is a trivial issue, but it is not trivial, and we will give evidence of this by looking at just one small part of the world – Western Australia – where there are currently 987 currently accepted undescribed taxa out of an estimated flora of about 13,000 that use this formulaic naming system (https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/). That is around 7.5% of all plant species in the state. Of these 987 taxa, over 50% are listed as Conservation Priority taxa (calculated from the florabase reference).
This is not just an Australian problem, or just a plant problem, and thus we need such a system formalised into a TDWG standard. This would allow for consistency across the globe and across life kingdoms and allow for the transfer of data through data aggregators such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). We also need citizen science apps such as iNaturalist to allow for the inclusion of such names in their taxonomies, otherwise we lose a lot of important information on some of the most valuable and threatened taxa in the world.
While looking at the benefits, we must also look at some of the drawbacks e.g., physical piracy of rare taxa, and taxonomic piracy. It has been suggested that in some taxonomic groups, tying a formula name to a voucher, and especially where there is a link to a photo on iNaturalist, could encourage taxon pirates to describe and publish the taxa as new taxa in self-published journals without having examined any material. These issues need to be discussed, but we believe they are not reasons to deny support of the concept of formulaic names, even if different formats are needed for different taxonomic groups.
citizen science, taxonomy, species names, data aggregator, threatened species, Australian biodiversity, conservation legislation
Arthur D Chapman
TDWG 2022