INaturalist has 5 requirements to create a species complex: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/curator+guide#complexes I think all 5 of these are essential, but I’m curious how literally to interpret “Complex is recognized in the literature”. I argue below that closely related insect species, in th…

Create! And I think that here also may be used “s.l.” (sensu lato) after the species name.

As a layperson, I always appreciate the extra layer of detail that having a species complex can provide. It might also help prevent bad data from being created, by people unaware of a DNA requirement for separation for instance?

Not an entomologist, but I think you lay out a good case for why including a species complex for this example is valuable. The only potential downside I can see is if adding a “species complex” might introduce some confusion, potentially because other users who aren’t as familiar with the taxonomy …

This has always puzzled me. I identify Noctuidae, and two very common moths are Xestia c-nigrum & Xestia dolosa. In Bugguide (which is the taxonomic structure that iNat follows for insects) it says that east of Manitoba the two cannot be distinguished visually - https://bugguide.net/node/view/30522 …

I assume the goal of requiring complexes to be recognized in the literature is to prevent abuse and unnecessary proliferation of complexes on iNat (especially since iNat records are ported to GBIF). However, I think it’s justifiable to create a complex that that does not meet this criterion if the o…

[image] mamestraconfigurata: but this suggests to me that Xestia c-nigrum is either replacing Xestia dolosa I don’t know anything about this particular case, but it is also possible that the opposite is true, that they are in the start of (at least in evolutionary time scales) diverging into …

Why could GBIF create a problem? If an observation were marked as Rivellia pallida complex on iNat and there’s no corresponding complex in GBIF, wouldn’t it just import as Rivellia? Curious to learn more.

It looks like GBIF currently doesn’t know what to do with complexes and simply maps the observation to the species that’s named in the complex name string, e.g.: https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/2005406919 That’s a problem because it creates spurious species records.

Oops. I let them know: https://github.com/gbif/portal-feedback/issues/2935

Insect species complexes: to create in iNat or not to create?

Curators

jurga_li August 7, 2020, 3:23pm 5

In short - do it! I had similar situation with lichens. People accept complexes much better that genus level IDs. And this results in better quality of data, too.

Topic		Replies	Views
More on species complexes Curators	27	2893	April 17, 2022
Use of the Term "Species Complex" in iNaturalist Taxonomy General	29	1582	December 4, 2024
Creating species complexes Curators	47	2807	February 18, 2024
How are species complexes treated? General	13	3974	October 15, 2019
Large genera with formal species-groups Curators	25	3099	June 12, 2022

Insect species complexes: to create in iNat or not to create?

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