Though a taxon split is the preferred method, what you describe can be an option in cases where very few observations are affected. (I’m in the middle of a similar situation at the moment…) You just have to be willing to personally follow up on the observations that need manual re-identification.
So in a case like this, identifications on observations outside Australia (or the parts of Australia where the two genera do not overlap) would be unaffected by a taxon split (if properly atlased first) if in exclusive Araneus range, or changed to the new genus if within its exclusive range.
Within the areas of overlap, only the images to which an identification of “Araneus” (at genus rank only) has been attached would be affected, and only to the extent of changing that one identification to family rank. It would not affect any other identifications attached to that same observation. The system would then re-calculate the community ID based on all of the identifications attached to a particular observation. If there are enough agreeing species IDs on the same observation, it’s possible that the updated genus => family ID would have no effect on the overall community ID for that observation.
That said, if there are only a few images (=observations) in iNat that belong to the new genus, and to which “Araneus” identifications are currently attached, and you have the time to find those and add your own identification (of the new genus) and explanatory comments to each one, then a formal taxon split might not be necessary. (Disclaimer - that’s the personal opinion of this curator, and not necessarily endorsed by other curators or iNat staff, who might still recommend a formal taxon split regardless.)
It helps to remember that taxon splits:
only affect individual identifications on an observation, and not necessarily the overall community ID of that observation, and
only affect identifications of the specific taxon and rank being split, and not of lower-level taxa that descend from from that taxon (which should then be moved to their correct new ancestors using separate taxon-change actions).
Some of the “taxa with unknown relationships” are the result of a spelling discrepancy with the source material and WSC. I do not know if they are the result of WSC deliberately changing the names or if they are typos. I emailed them about one but haven’t heard back. Should the names be changed to fit what is on WSC or is it OK to add a relationship linking it to the right page on WSC with a note about the discrepancy?
With the new tool for analyzing unintended disagreements, it looks like the “official” policy is that if fewer than 20 observations would be affected by the change a split probably isn’t necessary.
That depends on whether WSC is correct or not, which is up to curatorial discretion.
Unfortunately spelling changes usually require taxon changes in iNaturalist. For that reason it is definitely worth researching spelling discrepancies thoroughly first. At least with plants, the International Code of Nomenclature has rules for correct spelling that can sometimes be tricky to interpret correctly. So, best to be doubly sure that you know what the correct spelling should be before committing a taxon change for it, so that another taxon change is not needed later to change it back.
Thanks, I hadn’t had a chance to try that out yet, good to know.
I emailed them directly about one and never heard back. Also asked in a big Arachnology facebook group, got a few “likes” but no answers.
So far none of the changes I’ve made listed any disagreements.
Is atlasing a group easier than it looks? At first I thought I’d just be able to check off countries, states, and other regions … importing handmade maps looks like a lot of work though? I have more reading up to do.
I’m not sure what you’re looking at, but it’s not too hard if the ranges are broad and you don’t have to add a bunch of level 2 places (as I did here).
This is mostly how it works, but you can only do official iNat places (countries, states, and counties, or their equivalents).
This isn’t part of atlasing. You might be able to do that for ranges though.
Hello, I am also a new curator. Good to know, I was a bit confused about this. So, it is not necessary to create a new source for each added taxon right? I’m adding some plant species and I can’t find the most current source for POWO.
I’m also a bit confused. Some of this has clarified some of my questions, but I notice that if I use WoRMS as a source, there are these options that include a title and a URL. Does that mean that at some point someone has added the title and URL in separate boxes and it combines them into one if you turn up a result someone else has already put in? That would seem the most logical explanation.
Also, so it’s just okay to use the WoRMS homepage for each species of marine invertebrate I add? And if I just use WoRMS I should also cite the primary literature or only add WoRMS if I prefer to use primary literature, but I can use WoRMS on its own? For many genera of sea sponges, there are an incredible number of species and citing each original description would just not be possible. Is it acceptable to just add “New Source” and add the direct URL of that species in the “Title” box and leave it at that? or should that be actual words as part of filling out more? Or if I don’t want to fill all that out for each species should I just use the WoRMS homepage? Sorry if that’s a bit convoluted.
Swapping a genus with a new synonymous genus I inadvertently made a an inactive taxon for a name that shouldn’t exist.
Hypsocephalus pusillus = Staveleya pusilla (or Hypsocephalus pusillus = Hypsocephalus dahli = Staveleya pusilla, but I didn’t want to make dahli since that name was already outdated.)
Staveleya pusillus has never been a recognized name. I guess I should have singled that one out for a swap before moving the rest of the genus to prevent that? Should I make some sort of note on it to account for my error or not worry about it?
If you created it you can delete it. I’m not sure if this applies to automatically generated names or not, but even if it’s inactive it’s not a problem. You can delete the scientific name from the senior synonym if you don’t think it’s helpful.
To avoid this, I usually individually swap any mismatched gender endings before moving children to output.
I made a big mistake in August and just found out about it. The type species of Alopecosa accentuata was synonymized with A. trabalis … which I did but somehow I missed that Alopecosa barbipes was made active again and that’s where most of the pictures should have gone, and maybe some to farinosa I’m not sure. I wish I could just click “undo”. A. barbipes is currently still inactive, I don’t suppose if it’s made active again there is a way to get images that were originally filed there to go back there? I’m having difficulty focusing at the moment probably due to stress not related this. I don’t remember where the option is to make a taxon active again. Edit: Looks like I have some help with it on the flag.
If the taxon was inactivated as the result of being the input taxon for a taxon swap, the images would now be associated with the new output taxon, and re-activating the old taxon would not re-associate those images, unless another taxon swap was performed to have that effect. If you are finding yourself wanting to do that, I suggest getting some other curators to look at the situation with you first, to make sure that would be the best course of action at this point.
