Reactivation of a taxon: which one to reactivate?

Curators
1

I think that Najas major has to be reactivated since it has been demonstrated that it is the true name for what we it was thought it is N. marina which, in turn, is to be used for another entity previously known as N. marina subsp. intermedia or subsp. armata.

Notwithstanding, there are two N. major names, 752786 and 332758. So what to do?

2

It’s generally easier to see what you mean if you provide links and references - though I’m assuming you are talking about the conclusions of Rüegg et al (2017).

I personally agree with the taxon change you are proposing, but iNat generally follows POWO rather than the primary literature. POWO still considers N. major a synonym of Najas marina subsp. marina, so it’s maybe it’s best to leave it as it is right now for the time being.

That being said, both taxon pages - 752786 and 332758 - refer to Najas marina subsp. marina, not to Najas major. They only show up when you browse for Najas major because Najas major is listed as a synonym in both taxon pages. If you wanted to make a taxon change for that, you would have to create a new taxon page for Najas major.

3

Also, maybe this would be better under ‘Curators’ than under ‘General’

2 Likes
4

Of course I refer to that paper.
Let’s see other point of view

5

This is an even worse case:

Crocus neapolitanus (Ker Gawl.) Loisel. is an Italian endemic and is accepted in POWO and in our latest checklist but not in the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families which considers it a synonym of Crocus imperati Ten.

Anyway, it should be reactivated.

Unfortunately there are already 2 Crocus neapolitanus that have been synonymized with other taxa:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/161127-Crocus-imperati
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/210569-Crocus-serotinus-salzmannii

and another inactive taxon:
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/630964-Crocus-serotinus-salzmannii

PS: how can a certain taxon change be searched?

6

There is a filter/search function on the left hand side of the taxa changes homepage. The wording is a little unclear, the ‘taxon’ search finds changes where the selected taxon was the input taxa, the ‘ancestor taxon’ search finds cases where it was the output.

7

thanks

8

If I create a “new” Najas major then whenever users will try to id a Najas as N. major probably the first automatic option will be N. marina marina or, alternatively, N. marina marina will be among the option since the old N. major are still synonyms of N. marina marina.

Of course N. marina should be kept active while subsp. marina should be lumped into the species.

9

Inactive taxa will automatically redirect you to the active taxon, so once this is done the only one that will show up when you make an ID would be Najas major. Also, you can delete synonyms in the taxon page in the same way you can with common names, so that is not a problem.

In any case, as explained in the curator guide, you would need several taxon changes here, which may seem a little counter-intuitive:

  1. Create a new taxon page for Najas major
  2. Create a new taxon page for a newer and narrower concept of Najas marina
  3. Create a taxon change - a swap - from Najas marina ssp. marina to Najas major, which will inactivate the former
  4. Create a taxon change - a swap - from Najas marina ssp. armata to the new, narrow concept of Najas marina.
  5. Deal with the other subspecies of Najas marina present on iNat (ssp. arsenariensis and ssp. ehrenbergii). I don’t know which of the new species they belong to, but at least they should be regrafted onto the new concept of Najas marina.
  6. Create a taxon change - a split - that divides the older concept of Najas marina into Najas major and the narrower concept of Najas marina. Ideally, these two taxa will be atlased.
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10

First, according to POWO there are two different Crocus neapolitanus:

  1. Crocus neapolitanus Hoppe is a synonym of Crocus salzmannii J.Gay
  2. Crocus neapolitanus (Ker Gawl.) Loisel. is an accepted species

I have created a taxon page for the accepted Crocus neapolitanus. Nevertheless, Crocus salzmannii will still show up when you browse for Crocus neapolitanus because of Crocus neapolitanus Hoppe.

As for Crocus imperati, I think the only reason it is showing up when you browse for C. neapolitanus is its common name, “Neapolitan Crocus”, because C. neapolitanus is not listed a synonym on iNat.

Can you check if there are any observations of Crocus neapolitanus labelled as C. imperati? Or maybe create atlases for both species? We can split C. imperati if we have to, but otherwise everything should be fixed.

(I still need to raise Crocus salzmannii to species level on iNat, but that’s work for another day.)

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11

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