Because biblical kinds in the Old Testament (Genesis) predate any scientific definition of species and are probably how many people still think of them. I assume other religions that don’t use the Old Testament have something similar but don’t know. I’m no theologian.
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What do you base this assertion on?
Well, for one thing, a lot of people (like you) begin conversations of this sort with a reference to Linnaeus. Other than that, not much other than a lifetime of engagement with conservation of nature, two biology degrees featuring some very jnteresting couses at the undergraduate and graduate level in subjects like Evolution, Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Biology, 40+ years working in the various roles in work that involved management of endangered and invasive species, interaction with thousands of people of all ages, all walks of life and a broad range of cultures on three continents discussing issues of environment conservation, a term as chair of a provincial speccies at risk advisory committe and some other inconsequential stuuf of that nature.
I’m still waiting for your answer to this:
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I had no idea so many people associated Linnaeus with religion. Thanks. I’ll avoid using the name in future questions.
@stockslager – we already have two formal categories below species: subspecies and (in botany) variety.
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That’s actually really helpful to hear that stated clearly. I mean, I kinda thought that was the case. I think what would be interesting to consider is whether or not iNat could someday in the distant future add a different banner color for research grade obs that are below species… like an additional distinction with an a higher bar to clear that implies newer technology was used to describe the sub-species. This might lead those using the newer technologies to pursue new sub-species rather than new species. From an IT / human factors perspective it’s interesting to think about… but maybe it makes no sense taxonomically. But I kinda think it does. Because it would help keep the tools used to describe species more fixed… but if things are tied to powo anyway, well…
He associated himself with religion. A very large number of people who reference him are unaware of that but he was cataloguing his god’s creations, not assembling an evolutionary tree. To him, species were divinely created and immutable.
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That it is the only taxonomic rank widely used outside the scientific community? As in, laypersons who don’t know about taxonomic rankings will still refer to “species” (in whatever sense the word means to them) and use terms like “endangered species,” even if they don’t know words like phylum, subtribe, etc.
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Got it, had no idea.
I tried to explain the “special meaning” in context before what you quoted. It’s pretty easy for an ordinary person to have some sense of how many species Lesser Celandine has extirpated from their lot. This is because the religious guy used simplistic tools to observe species. Ordinary people will find preservation less accessible and measurable if multiple species increasingly look exactly the same.
Probably doesn’t help that Endangered and Threatened species as defined under the US Endangered Species Act can be species, subspecies, species complexes (based on newer taxonomic interpretations) or distinct population segments.
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No. Those applying science can and do use a bunch of terms to those ends. One term that has some currency in English speaking countries is Evolutionarily Significant Units. Yeah, it’s a mouthful but it is a lot more precise than species, a word for which there is no agreed upon definition.
The confusion that people may experience is a result of the world being a more complicated place than they believed it to be. The word species has always been a problematic in a scientific context and the new developments are just making that more obvious.
Will this complicate communications around endangered species conservation? Perhaps, but mostly because people will inevitably get into bickering about it instead of dealing with it.
The cryptic diversity in some groups is a marvel and the complexity it reveals is something to be valued not dismissed as a distraction or a threat. The revelation that there is more going on in biodiversity than meets the eye is important. More to the point, it is the truth. The idea that species are static things with neat boundaries is not.
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I don’t understand anything you wrote here.
When scientists describe subspecies/varieties, they use exactly the same technologies they use to describe (or split, combine) species. This may include “traditional” technologies like examination of morphology, or it may use more recent technologies such as DNA analysis and creation of phylogenetic trees, or – more likely – some combination of both.
You can easily tell if something is below species rank on iNat because it will have a trinomial – a name consisting of three parts – instead of the binomial of a species name.
POWO does not create species. POWO is a taxonomic reference that iNat uses as the basis for its plant taxonomy. POWO is not the only taxonomic reference and not everybody follows the taxonomy used by POWO (e.g., some of the German botanical resources I use differ from POWO regarding whether certain plant forms are subspecies of one species interpreted broadly, or full species in their own right.)
Species are described by scientists following certain formal processes. Just because a species description or a taxonomic revision is published, that does not mean it will automatically be accepted by the scientific community. It also does not mean that the species will remain fixed forever – it may later get split into multiple species or synonomized with other species.
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Some relatively short and accessible read on species concepts and their history:
https://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/G331/lectures/331speci.html
(plus, it evidently goes beyond the neontologists’ views on species)
This conversation has occurred in Nature Talk. I started the conversation because I have a concern as an ordinary citizen. As an ordinary citizen, it would be difficult for me to do anything impactful to address my concern without the help of people more knowledgeable than me. It’s clear to me that you at least understand the concern. This doesn’t mean you agree with the concern… but I do view you as way more knowledgeable than me in this vertical… so if it’s a valid concern, you might carry it with you and allow it to influence you in other conversations (possibly only in terms of expression of understanding of whoever is concerned). I’ll probably start another thread in the next couple days about one solution that could possibly address this concern. Since you understand the concern (although you may not agree with the concern), I’d be excited if you read it.
It’s also clear that @DianaStuder has a very valid point that there is…
But this only means that the solution must be respectful of multiple viewpoints.
I’m a bit confused by the “warrant a new rank below species” part. Subspecies is a rank below species and has apparently existed in taxonomy since at-least 1844.
We’ve had a rank below species for nearly 200 years.
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For plants we have
subspecies
form
variety
To me, the two viewpoints we must be respectful of are…
-
the modern taxonomy viewpoint
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the average citizen viewpoint
A botanist, toggling between the two viewpoints, would have data presented to them. That data is the result of exploration (frequently by citizens), discovery (occasionally by citizens), and description (rarely by citizens). The data can be disassociated from exploration, discovery, and description via data modeling. The citizens viewpoint would have visually similar species, partially discovered or described via new technology, presented as a single species with several sub-species. The taxonomists viewpoint would include visually similar species, whose discovery and/or description were aided by new technology presented as the scientists know them to be (different species without some of them presented as sub-species).
Problems… This dramatically over-simplifies the work that would be needed to model the data in different ways. What it would ultimately become is two different lenses through which to collect and view the data. It implies that those unhappy with the existing UI write their own UI using the public iNat api’s and modeling data via the new UI. In some ways this is possible without writing any code…
I could set up a project called The Red Seeded Dandelion.
I could require the collection of two new observation fields for each obs added to the new project. One which describes the new technology used to identify the taraxacum obs as red seeded (identification-technology=macro-photography). And one which describes the trait photographed that justifies the description (identifiable-trait=seeds). This would allow for modeling on the explore page and via the api’s. Which also means that iNat may not be all that interested in modifying their existing UI. It already somewhat supports alternative modeling… it’s just that the user defined meta data can be manipulated by anyone and isn’t collected as a core part of an observation by those with either view-point.
A taxonomist collecting data for an observation that would appear as a sub-species (to the citizen) but as a species (to the taxonomist) would be required to collect these new observation fields with a UI dedicated to taxonomy. They would also be able to add these observation fields when a citizen stumbles into macro-photography and happens to photograph seeds. In either case, the observations would continue to appear as sub-species in the citizen’s view (and species in the taxonomists)
This frees POWO to adjust taxonomy as necessary. It frees the citizen to operate within his view of the world. It frees the taxonomist to operate within their view of the world. I’m hoping that one of the two (or both) would be satisfactory to botanists.
You are right… what I was implying (poorly) is that some people id to species and some go further down… and there isn’t exactly agreement or consistency. Nor is there prompting to justify the reasoning behind the selection of sub-species. Because of this… I wasn’t sure if sub-species was a formalized concept in taxonomy. Since it is, it would seem the choice of a sub-species would have prompting for the user in order that the user justify their selection. This would seem to be more and more important if species and or sub-species begin to become described in ways that are less and less accessible to ordinary citizens.
I am not a botanist. POWO does not ‘experiment with taxonomy’. Two sets of taxonomy operating on Planet A and Planet B - that cannot end well.
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You are right. I apologize. I adjusted the wording.
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