I coordinate our community science efforts in Surrey (British Columbia, CA not England :slightly_smiling_face:). With so many taxonomic changes happening it’s hard to keep up with the lumping and splitting at times. Though I do get annual updates from our provincial BC Conservation Data Centre (link…

For what it’s worth, identifying to subspecies ahs been discussed a lot here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/search?q=subspecies%20%23general [image] surrey-bc_biodiversity: Linked to the above, in situations where the species and subspecies are still accepted for the same area (example: this re…

[image] surrey-bc_biodiversity: Where is the best place to track taxonomic and or common name changes on iNaturalist? You can find and filter taxon changes here: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxon_changes You can also subscribe to dashboard/email notifications for new taxon changes on observ…

[image] surrey-bc_biodiversity: Where is the best place to track taxonomic and or common name changes on iNaturalist? the changing of names is accelerating and there isn’t really any effort to accommodate for the impact that has to any users who aren’t taxonomists. Most of what used to be sub…

Neither way is wrong. My usual rule of thumb is that I go for the species unless the subspecies is adds useful information itself. No reason putting Vulpes vulpes crucigera in Britain because all the red foxes are that subspecies - it adds nothing, so Vulpes vulpes will do there. But wood spurge, E…

Thanks @tiwane , agreed. That is typically something I look for, or is regionally endemic or peripheral. We don’t have as many automatically obscured fauna here, it’s mostly plants. Even most of the Species at Risk Act listed fauna don’t automatically obscure and some of them are vulnerable to poachi…

@thomaseverest , I think that would be too many observations for me to follow :wink: But now I know where to look for info on the changes when I see something that looks new coming up in the observation ID chain!

You follow every observation you post, ID, or comment on, but you only get one notification per taxon change.

[image] surrey-bc_biodiversity: Where is the best place to track taxonomic and or common name changes on iNaturalist? For this @jeanphilippeb wrote software for a botanical garden in France https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/jeanphilippeb/99059-software-for-reviewing-and-fixing-a-list-of-sp…

[image] jamie-aa: No reason putting Vulpes vulpes crucigera in Britain because all the red foxes are that subspecies - it adds nothing, so Vulpes vulpes will do there yeah, i see this a lot with subspecies, like many trees in eastern North America technically have subspecies because a differe…

[image] surrey-bc_biodiversity: is it better to agree with the sp or the ssp? Does it matter? Whether by means of the Agree button or typing in an ID yourself, you should ID something to the level of specificity that you (1) feel (for whatever reason) motivated to, and (2) are confident that …

Species or subspecies or both - which way to verify? - #13 by system - General

Topic		Replies	Views	Activity
Improve support / workflow for subspecies? General	16	1123	August 23, 2023
Choosing not to identify subspecies General	44	5243	March 26, 2019
Who establishes a new subspecies? Nature Talk taxonomy	61	4758	May 7, 2019
Have leading subspecies IDs update Observation Taxon below species, even when coarser IDs present Feature Requests	21	573	April 9, 2026
Subspecies Having The Same Common Name as the Species General	37	756	September 21, 2025