Perhaps.
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Would an image of the powo dataset, from say 2016… be a simplified dataset? I mean, I don’t think anyone would create all the boxes from scratch. They’d probably start with something.
I mean personally I don’t know plant taxonomy well enough to know what has changed since 2016, but I would expect not that much. The taxonomy of Taraxacum has been the way it is now for decades for example; I think taxonomists have been aware of the issues with them and similar ambiguous reproduction/hybridization issues since long before genome comparisons were possible. Personally I’ve seen phylogenetics cause more shifting and splitting at higher levels than at species level, with birds and insects that I follow a bit more closely.
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This is such a cool example that really captures the ecological relevance too - if the cryptic species that hosts the butterfly were to disappear it would have ecological implications for the butterfly too. Declines in the host plant species may less noticeable (and actionable) with several plant species lumped together.
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Sorry, @stockslager – I got very very busy and just did light work here. And also, “What I perceive to be my vertical” does not communicate. What in the world is a vertical in this context?
cf. https://www.tun.com/jobs/vertical/ I think it’s a business/software engineering piece of jargon, in the same way engineers tend to borrow “orthogonal” from linear algebra to mean something like “unrelated” or more precisely “can be adjusted independently of each other”.
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Sorry… I’m just saying that I have no formal training in botany, ecology, biology, etc. I do have formal training and professional experience in software development and a passionate interest in the natural world. My vertical… the lens through which I see things… is from an IT perspective. Specifically, applying software in a way that achieves some end result. This is where my resistance to splitting at the species level comes from. Modern software seems like it might require one of two things…
- the species rank will need to remain more static -or-
- the software will need to support bundling at different taxonomic levels and dynamic display based on user role.
In your carrot family example… it would be a shame if the difference between the four new species were so subtle that the CV module flickers between four options with the slightest fluttering of the leaves in a light breeze.
What I like about the example is that the decision to split the species was done because of a concrete use case… to preserve a butterfly. However… I’m not sure the butterfly is best preserved if the flickering of the CV module because of the four new species with subtle differences causes the species to be identified to genus. If it had id’d successfully to the old single species, a wise user might have known to look more closely using a key.
Even in this example (which is a favorable one wrt splitting)… I’m not sure you’ll get the outcome you’re hoping for by splitting the species. Because the subtle differences that cause the fluttering of the Algo Id, will result in an answer with less clarity, not more. It’ll just say “it’s sure of genus”, not species. At least that’s the way I see it.
Silo is an unnecessary pejorative. I’d rather use “vertical”, especially when referring to myself. :)
If I start from the assumption that the best definition for the rank of species is something like “the minimum grouping of organisms that is reliably distinguished by machine learning algorithms from all other such groupings based on visible surface features of the organisms in that group,” then this perspective would make sense to me.
But I don’t, and it doesn’t, and I suspect the same is true for most users of biological taxonomy. I want biological classification to make some kind of biological sense, even if the choice of taxonomic rank is arguably arbitrary for different biological phenomena (reproductive isolation, independent evolutionary lineages, etc.) or amounts of biodiversity.
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Thank you for the expression of understanding for my concern. The reason I’m not starting with an assumption is that I also offer a software solution that allows biologists and others to split species as much as they’d like…
2 - the software will need to support bundling at different taxonomic levels and dynamic display based on user role.
What makes this option troublesome is that it implies “data normalization” across a hierarchy of nested analogues. If the four new species of Lomatium were stored in a section or sub-genus or some level between genus and species such that the algo could say… we’re not sure about species but we’re pretty sure it’s in this section (or sub-genus). This would allow the algo to have as much clarity as before the species was split. It would also allow the data to be modeled differently based on user role. I don’t think it would be modeled differently in this particular case… but perhaps in others. But I think this solution might require that section / sub-genus be used in a standard way across the taxonomic hierarchy (and also within iNat). Otherwise, how would the CV module know when to present section/sub-genus as an ID. Also, it’s possible I have a poor understanding of section / sub-genus. But it seems like splitting of species based on increasingly slight variations would require more use of levels between genus and species.
This might be a requirement for the software you seem to be envisioning, but it’s not at all a taxonomic or biological requirement. Subdivisions between genus and species are optional, are often not used at all, and are different for plant versus animal taxonomy. For plants, at least, they also require validation by publication.
So as a practical matter, if they were a requirement for some hypothetical software, the software itself would have to generate equivalent “unofficial” subdivisions, because the small taxonomic community would never have the resources or bandwidth to create enough “official” named subdivisions.
(Disclaimer: if my posts have been missing your points, it’s likely because I still don’t have any concrete concept of the “software” you have been mentioning.)
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Exactly. The additional data would be stored alongside the taxonomic data but not be a part of it. The non-taxonomic “unofficial” subdivisions would appear as expanded or collapsed based on role. Someone with a role of “botanist” would be shown 2,000 individual species of Taraxacum. Someone with a role of “gardener” might see the 2,000 bundled together as dandelion (or Taraxacum officinale) especially if they are indistinguishable from one another. Someone who doesn’t have the “botanist” role set would choose “dandelion” because that’s what is presented to them, but the botanist would see the full list of options for that same observation and could further ID it to species if possible (although to the observer (the gardener) it would continue to show as dandelion (officinale). Because it would allow self-selection of role, a non-botanist could always choose to see things through a botanical lens by self-identifying as having a role of “botanist”.
It’s complex, but interesting to think about.
Having the cv module understand “role” might also be interesting if it’s ever embedded as a plug-in within digital cameras. A “birder” using a zoom lens and focusing on a chickadee sitting on a poplar limb would see black-capped and carolina as options in the viewfinder. A “dendrologist” using the same camera focused on the same chickadee but with a role set to “dendrologist” would see “tulip poplar” in the viewfinder. The camera would ignore the chickadee. A “generalist” might see “chickadee” and “tulip poplar”. A “detail” role might show everything with full detail (black-capped, Carolina, tulip poplar). Each level would have a “collapse_for_roles” array that lists the roles for which that level is collapsed. The default would be expanded.
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Why do you feel this is needed? What would be the purpose of creating such a software?
Why is the gardener not considered capable of comprehending the idea that what we think about as the common “dandelion” is treated by taxonomists a group of microspecies? How does calling the plants the gardener interacts with “Taraxacum spp” rather than “Taraxacum officinale” have any practical effect on the gardener’s activities? Why does concealing the complexity of the scientific taxonomy benefit the gardener in any way?
There are lots of organisms that we regularly think about at units broader than species level. When a mosquito lands on your arm, do you ask yourself which species it is before slapping it? With the possible exception of scientists studying mosquito-borne diseases and iNatters looking for new species for their life lists, I suspect most of us do not. The fact that “mosquito” does not refer to one species but to an entire family of organisms does not make it impossible for us to talk about, think about, or interact with mosquitoes.
The purpose of scientific names is that they provide a shared, consistent framework for scientists to talk about the organisms they study. (It doesn’t always work perfectly, since taxonomy is refined in a piecemeal manner, and new insights may lead to species getting renamed, synonymized, or split and therefore it is sometimes necessary to make sure people are talking about the same taxon concept – but on the whole it allows for communication.)
If one is not interested in or does not need the scientific divisions, one is not required to use scentific names. This is why common names exist for species that matter to us outside of scientific investigations.
But if one is recording organisms on a website where the collected data is used for scientific research, I don’t see what possible benefit there would be to hiding the complexity of the scientific taxonomy and presenting non-scientist users with version that is considered suitably simplified for their needs. How is this anything other than infantilizing and patronizing? Users are already free to not to actively engage with taxonomy on iNat. Many don’t. But the information is there for everyone to see, independent of their “role” or background.
Part of the point of citizen science, it seems to me, is the fact that it allows laypersons to participate in scientific processes – not some cleaned up, simplified version of “science”, but actual, real science, in all its messiness. This may also mean engaging with the scientific debates and disagreements, with inconclusive results and thorny problems like apomictic dandelion reproduction, and with all the things that we do not yet know or fully understand.
I asked this before and you never gave a clear response, so I will repeat it: just exactly what problem have you diagnosed that you are trying to solve, and what solution are you proposing?
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Like I said, the gardener (like me) could choose a role of “botanist” if they wanted to. You’d self-identify as a role, not have one assigned to you.
You have not answered my primary question: Why do you feel there is a need to have a different view for different users?
How does it help you as a self-identified gardener if the dandelion micro-species are hidden? What advantage does this simplified view offer for you?
Or to put it the other way around: why is the existence of dandelion micro-species a problem? How does displaying this information negatively affect you or impede your ability to use iNat?
in inverted commas - why?
Lots of working botanists on iNat.
I am not a qualified botanist, but I do not identify myself as gardener or botanist, or in inverted commas.
There are small slices, and large chunks of iNat that various iNatters disagree with. Most of us manage to work around those difficulties. In between there are effective improvements from iNat which resolve That Problem for us.
You want to ‘use’ iNat but have your taxonomy frozen to Ancient Linnaeus?
And frankly the gardeners on iNat are likely to be growing indigenous / native plants and to use modern taxonomy and scientific names.
inverted commas because the name of the role is arbitrary, the career is not. the name of the role could be “planter”… as in someone interested in plants. “birder” would be the name of the role for someone interested in birds (not ornithologist). basically, I couldn’t come up with a word for those interested in botany. maybe “botanizer”.
Like Diana said, many of the people on iNat are growing indigenous / native plants… if the role is “restorationist” they don’t care if there are 2,000 dandelion species if none of them are native and they all look alike. To an invasive removal robot running the CV, the labels could be reduced to “encourage” or “destroy”. The application of science is very different from science itself. Those in the field make decisions based on science that they are interpreting (or that is interpreted for them… such as by an ecologist at local nature preserve leading volunteers as they identify and remove garlic mustard). Serving every person in every role all the science stifles their ability to change the world based on that science. All the science should be made available to them if they indicate they are interested in seeing it. Otherwise, there should be awareness of their role… whatever it is.
aside… i’d like a Roomba for my lesser celandine please.
So? How does including all the non-native dandelions as separate species negatively affect them or “stifle their ability to change the world”? One simply needs to include the entire genus in the group of organisms one wishes to remove instead of a single species. In either case, you need to select which organisms you wish to include in your list of invasives that are to be removed (vs. those introduced organisms which are to be tolerated), so I don’t see what you gain by treating dandelions or other cryptic groups as a single species.
I am quite aware that the application of science has different requirements than descriptive science, but I don’t understand why this means we should create a new taxonomy for each specific purpose.
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When they are in their yards observing a dandelion it is unlikely to reach research grade if it’s id’d to genus. this means they are unsure if they are able to successfully identify a dandelion… because it never reaches RG. Imagine if Lonicera Maackii were split. There are natives in that genus too. Having non-taxonomic groupings based on role would inform real world decisions. This assumes there will be splitting. If there is less splitting, there is less of an issue. The splitting would dictate the need to consider role based groupings. Otherwise, the “restorationist” considering the removal of Lonicera Maackii would be left at genus and wondering what to do.