Feature request details:
On the Upload page, for taxa which have, in iNatâs taxonomy, an identical scientific name for both a complex (or section) and species level taxon, bring up a pop-up window which offers the user the ability to actively disambiguate the choice instead of the current behavior which automatically fills in the higher of the taxon levels.
On what basis? Iâm unclear (either in Leps or plants) which, if either, has some standard usage. I see âSectionâ all the time in technical works on moths (e.g. the MONA fascicles).
The sections were clearly named in an attempt to follow iNatâs rules for complexes, which regulate the complex to be named after the first described species in the group. Sections, unlike complexes, require published uninomial names (like genera, e.g. âsect. Lobataeâ) and are not named after one of the species in the group.
Section, as used on iNat, is not a zoological rank. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) mandates that there is nothing between subgenus and species. The rank âsectionâ in zoology is instead typically applied to an informal, intermediate rank between Order and Family, which iNat calls a âzoosection.â
For instances like the ones shown above, the rank complex should be used instead and mostly fills the same purpose. Complex is an informal rank used on iNat for groups of similar or indistinguishable species rather than a formalized rank requiring a published uninomial name. âSectionâ should only be used for taxa covered by the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (ICN, formerly the ICBN), except in niche cases where thereâs a critical need for a stopgap measure elsewhere that cannot be remedied any other way.
@rynxs I hear what youâre saying about ICZN, but I seem to remember any number of Moths of North America monographs on various moth groups in which the authors sometimes lump similar species into âSectionsâ, but I may be misremembering. Most commonly, they are termed âxxxxxx-species groupâ and unfortunately, those are the informal groupings for which iNat is using the species binomial. Iâm away from those volumes at the moment, so Iâll have to study this taxon level question for moths later.
We had a lengthy debate about complexes elsewhere on the forum a while back, and it was brough up that the Curator Guide is very specific about what âComplexâ is to be used for, and it absolutely does need to be recognized and named in literature to be added, and it needs to be defended in the literature as a monophyletic grouping:
It might not be an official rank according to ICZN, but iNat is pretty strict about its use.
Yes, there is a feature request open to add âspecies groupâ as a taxonomic rank, as this is used in the literature for pretty much all large insect genera. Staffâs suggestion on that thread was
So iNatâs âsectionâ and MONAâs âspecies groupsâ are, at least for now, being treated as synonymous. If a âComplexâ is meant to be a âgroup of similar or indistinguishable speciesâ, then the MONA âspecies groupsâ definitely donât align well to that concept. There are cases where oddball species are in monotypic âgroupsâ, there are cases where the members of a species group are unified by DNA/genitalia similarities and are extremely easy to differentiate based on external appearance, etc. At least for moths, current practice is to coopt âSectionâ to mean âSpecies Groupâ of the literature, and to reserve âComplexâ for specific cases where a couple of very closely related species provide identification difficulty. The Curator Guide does say to use Complexes âsparingly (only when necessary and helpful)â, while species-groups are, honestly, not always helpful to have in the iNat taxonomy, and have been applied across-the-board to some large genera in the literature.
Here is the original full discussion about âComplexesâ from last time this debate happened.
I guess tl;dr the rank is called âSectionâ on iNat because the botanists got to it first, and now the entomologists who use âSpecies Groupsâ are stuck pretending that it says âSpecies Groupâ because staff doesnât want to add an analogous rank for us. lol
The ICZN recognizes the subgenus Lepitoreuma for all the Nearctic oak daggers. Within that subgenus, there are a few big robust species with a history of taxonomic confusion that MONA put into the afflicta âspecies groupâ, and a bunch of smaller species with their own history of taxonomic confusion that MONA put into the increta âspecies groupâ. Within the increta species-group, the two sister species increta and cryptica are so similar that they can only be distinguished by DNA or dissection, and are inseparable based on photos. So this pair is given as a âcomplexâ. This illustrates the difference between species-groups and complexes, and the need for both levels. But again, the botanists got Section added, and weâve been stuck coopting it for our species-groups ever since.
