I think the curator guide’s suspicious attitude re: hybrids is spot-on, and I’m honestly a little bit alarmed by the number of people in this thread that want to loosen our attitude toward identifying hybrid taxa.
In vascular plants, I’ve seen many instances where people will confidently assert that a specimen is a hybrid, but don’t seem to have considered alternative hypotheses to account for its apparent deviation from the typical appearance of the species (simple genetic variance, phenotypic plasticity, polyploidy, introgression, ancient hybridization, ur-populations that have since diverged in other regions, etc., etc.). Some of these involve hybridization, but they are quite distinct from a simple F1 generation.
I can see how this might be different in the vertebrate world, where Mayr’s Biological Species Concept is sometimes more practical. It’s probably simpler when hybridization is restricted basically to the F1 generation.
I really like the idea of a simple flag for “suspected hybrid”, maybe with check-boxes for suspected parentage. I think @pjmatthews is right on-the-money with his suggestion.
4 Likes
But you know, some of us do actually know we’re looking at hybrid populations. For example, a variable population of Iris chrysophylla x Iris tenax in an area where both parents occur. Or those Raphanus sativus x raphanistrum hybrids.
5 Likes
Another cause of false reports of hybrids: undescribed species! A problem in Lomatium and Sedum and no doubt others.
3 Likes
Tony, I would guess multi-way hybrids are beyond the scope here since. For one because they are probably extreme cases, and in addition because the parentage is usually hard to determine in those cases as well (especially in terms of wild or “naturalized” plants, which is likely where this is most important). I think there are very, very few cases where we’d have to make a multi-way hybrid that does not fit these previously mentioned instances. Again that is mostly speaking for plants considered “wild”, not garden cultivars where the exact parentage may well be known, and not uniquely named (but most seem to be, e.g. Viola wittrockiana).
My note on common names is just for the automatic page creation. If there is a unique common name, your example with Leucadendron for instance, that can be added as normal and even moved so that it becomes the “priority” name.
I don’t want to replace × with x in the species name – rather the reverse, to prevent taxon pages being created with x instead of ×.
2 Likes
I agree. I meant that for users searching in the ID box, the X should be treated as an ×. Even for those who know it is not an X, finding the code is is a pain. Fortunately this works:
https://www.inaturalist.org/search?q=leuc%20laur%20sali
4 Likes
avoiding multi-way hybrids will also help avoid the problem mentioned above of people spam-adding commercial orchid hybrids
2 Likes
Could we at least have this one addressed? Part 1 of this three-part proposal is, in my opinion, a bug for Bug Reports, not a feature request. I feel most people would reasonably expect (as I did earlier today) that a search for “woodsia x gracilis” would find it that way, and not have to type “woodsia × gracilis” or “woodsia gracilis” instead.
4 Likes
I was reminded of this issue when I saw this number and assumed there were 27 oak species in Ontario, when actually 13 of the taxa listed are just hybrids. I don’t think that makes sense.
1 Like
Has there been any resolution on this? I’m wondering what the protocol is, specifically for https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/39123785
Part 1 is addressed, e.g. “woodsia x gracilis” matches. Parts 2 & 3 are outstanding.
2 Likes