Etiquette for ID of species with no visual differences

Probably adding a flag about creation a species complex could help.

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I read here that complexes must be recognized in literature. Probably the right path to address @sedgequeen but I’m afraid does not help with the species which can be told apart by microscopy but not by “macro” habitus :slightly_frowning_face:

It definitely sounds like a complex if they weren’t recognised as separate species before.

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Did that.

My 2¢ would be to just go to genus (or higher, if warranted). Otherwise, you are potentially under or over-estimating the occurrence and/or range of an organism. I perform taxonomy on benthic marine invertebrates and that appears to be standard practice. I don’t think you should ever ID something to a level past where you are absolutely certain.

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thanks I agree but I’m soon going to open another thread to discuss the concept of certainty in species identification. :slightly_smiling_face:
the thread is About the concept of species, use of locations for ID, and related expectations on ID accuracy

I can agree on range, but as for frequency (if that’s what you mean for occurrence) I think getting any conclusion about that from iNat obs is pushing things a bit too far…

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Yes, frequency. And I think you can get that generally from iNat, e.g. high frequency (number of observations) of a particular organism in a particular area, maybe a micro-habitat.

and not worry too much if the complexes are actually clades

I may be mistaken, but I think the reason iNat requires that everything is a scientifically-accepted clade is so that any given taxon has exactly 1 path to the “root” of the taxonomic tree.

There are a number of reasons why they might do this, and I imagine the 2 most important might be (1) it makes agreement calculations much easier and (2) it prevents argument over what “should” be grouped.

The observation fields, as I understand it, are exactly where users are supposed to put taxonomic information of this sort.

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well, I have read around this is not recommended. For instance, there is no guideline as making observations of different individuals, you can take as many obs of the same individual you deem meaningful. There is another thread about that running
I think that for meaningful data on frequency you should stick to survey plans. I bet insect less visually appealing do not get much attention out there. - anyway, this is off topic, and just my opinion.

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one thing I am not yet clear is if it makes sense flagging a couple of species for having them grouped once sources in literature proves they cannot be told apart. Is flagging in these cases something with hope of getting somewhere or will it just be ignored?
@bouteloua can you pls advise?

You can read the site guidelines on complexes here :
https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#nodes

It is down a little from where that will land you, that is the closest bookmark, look for the section on species complexes.

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No, using iNat as frequency data is a wrong idea, as admins stated before. For most species there’s not enough data to even show where exactly they exist, not talking about frequency. The only thing that can be helpfl from the situation of many obs is that you personally can visit and take a chance to find it there, but no actual reason to think it’s a better place than others as you ever know how good one or another spot is explored.

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You also can’t calculate frequency from detection-only (lacking non-detections) data that doesn’t include effort or some kind of standardized protocol.

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I’m probably one of those people who identify subspecies “by range” which can be true in some cases but I believe date and location are proportional in determining subspecies. I agree, if I see an Osprey in Washington, I can easily identify it as subspecies carolinensis because the next closest subspecies lives in the Caribbean and to identify it as such can be redundant.

However, let’s take the same location and replace the species with the American Robin. The breeding subspecies is propinquus, but you have caurinus wintering on the coast and migratorius as I possible vagrant in fall. A couple weeks ago, I submitted about 30 observations of robins in Spokane to show age and sex. I submitted them all as propinquus because they didn’t have the white tail tips of a vagrant migratorius and males still had the “hood” that caurinus. Yet someone proceeded to tell me I can’t identify by range and continued to do so after I explained how I came down to subspecies.

What I’m trying to say it’s frustrating from both sides of the spectrum, especially when the ssp identifier is not doing his id by range. And usually my comeback statement to those who say I can’t identify by range (and this is what I believe @edolis is trying to present) is “Well, leave all your Black-billed Magpies at Pica genus then…”

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i guess my question is, if you are only IDing subspecies by range, what’s the point of adding the subspecies? You can look at the map and see where the birds are, and so it’s pretty circular/recursive, really. Is it a life list thing?

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True. I just find it annoying when 9 out of 10 times I report subspecies, identifiers always jump to the “you identified by range” conclusion.

yeah if you are identifying them based on characteristics and others claim it is based on range and won’t retract when you explain, I can see that as being frustrating.

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(for everyone who has shown interest on this topic, I have edited the topic text linking my journal post where I summarize the approach to ID I’ll be working with - comments here please if needed.
It’s not a final version, but a work in progress which I will elaborate as I use it)

I agree with magpie example, sometimes there’s no need to invent complicated things, when there’s nothing to choose from you id the species by range alone, espcially if we’re talking about things that don’t move around too much.

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looks completely in line with what I heard about the case of Emys trinacriae