I’ve seen some lack of standardization for the naming of complexes. As I see it, names should be in accordance with taxonomic naming conventions and thus follow binomial nomenclature, like Complex Solanum nigrum or Complex Chionodes pereyra. In these examples, when uploading or editing the taxon’s name, it is just rendered as “Solanum nigrum” and “Chionodes pereyra”, respectively (that is, the same name as the “main” species within the complex). A precedent for this is the naming of infraspecific taxa, which in their names don’t include their category written out. For example, Juniperus deppeana var. deppeana is just called Juniperus deppeana deppeana; it does not include the placement (“var.”) in its name.
However, I’ve seen some groups that don’t follow this convention; for example, the complex including Porcellio scaber has the word “group” in the taxon page (Complex Porcellio scaber group); other taxa have “-group” with a dash attached to the binomial (e.g. Section Epicauta cinerea-group); in other branches I’ve even come upon names with two additional (superfluous, in my eyes) words: Complex Core covillei clade for the species that form a complex with Myriopteris covillei (note that the genus is not even mentioned in the complex name!).
Are all of these fine? Shouldn’t there be a standardized nomenclature?
Yeah as far as I’m aware it should be “(the first species in the group that was described) complex”, but I know for the Porcellio scaber example it isn’t exactly a complex, or at least it wasnt put together for the reason complexes are usually put together.
The group comprises of many closely related species that should really be in their own genus, but due to relic taxonomy they are piled into one genus along with many other semi-unrelated species. So that genus has been split up here on iNat into “groups“ to make things easier to ID. Ideally there would be subgenera or something else instead of complexes but that cannot be added until that is reflected in the literature, which will probably take a long time because research is slow for terrestrial isopods.
”If a “principal species name” is not established in the literature, use the earliest published species name for the name of the complex. Enter just the name (“Dryophytes versicolor”) and not additional words (“Dryophytes versicolor species complex” or “Dryophytes versicolor group”), for consistency and because iNaturalist is an international database; these words do not translate into other languages.”
The examples you give should be corrected. One note I would make is that I often add something like ‘Platycheirus clypeatus group’ as the English common name, depending on how it is typically referred to, because this helps to make the distinction with the s.s. more obvious for most users. But the scientific name should not include extraneous words, just Genus speciesus, and select the appropriate rank.