Use of the Term "Species Complex" in iNaturalist Taxonomy

[upupa-epops]

I think confusion about species complexes comes largely from a combination of a very broad interpretation of how to apply that rank:

@jdmore

I think this can be true of complexes under the current guidance too, though you are right, it could be clarified. I read the sentence you quoted as covering three example “and/or” situations:

• Species sometimes intergrade
• there are places on the tree of life where adding hard range map boundaries is arbitrary
• identification to species level is often not possible

As well as a preference from staff to co-opt other ranks (like species complex) rather than make a new taxon rank for species groups:

@loarie

If this is an insect only problem, my preference would be to coerce ‘section’ and ‘subsection’ which is restricted to plants into this use case rather than add entirely new ranks

@paul_dennehy

Are there any fellow pedants out there who are also bothered by this?

I think most taxonomy curators, as fellow pedants, don’t like to incorrectly use plant ranks for insects (I’m only aware of one instance, the genus Platycheirus, where this has actually been done), which means everyone is sticking to formal subgenera and a broad use of informal “complex” as the least worst compromise.