Heads up: Some or all of the identifications affected by this split may have been replaced with identifications of Junonia. This happens when we can't automatically assign an identification to one of the output taxa. Review identifications of Junonia coenia 48505

Taxonomic Split 72690 (Committed on 2021-06-15)

Based on changes to the Pelham catalogue, which were based on this paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/syen.12335

Added by nlblock on February 25, 2020 09:10 PM | Committed by nlblock on June 15, 2021
split into

Comments

@nlblock, not sure if you're still working on this, but FYI, as far as I can tell, J. grisea is not atlased: it has an atlas, but no presence places, so this split would be pretty disruptive in its current state. Unfortunately the paper you cited is closed-access, so the only people who can update the atlas would be those with access to the paper.

I'm now seeing a length discussion at https://www.inaturalist.org/flags/472648. Maybe it would be wise to put a notice in this change's description asking people not to commit it until the situation with BoA has been resolved.

Posted by kueda over 3 years ago

@loarie, here is the draft split. The children still need to be moved, though.

Posted by nlblock almost 3 years ago

This seems to show a tremendous number of Common Buckeye (in the post-split sense) in CA. As I'm sure you've read, the lead author of the study doesn't believe any remain there (there's evidence of a historical population, which might have been a short-lived introduction).

Posted by snapdragyn almost 3 years ago

All of the CA Commons would be re-identified as Gray Buckeyes with this split, based on the atlases not overlapping there.

Posted by nlblock almost 3 years ago

Just pinging again, @loarie. From my understanding, it seems like almost all the buckeyes in AZ are Gray, so do you think it makes more sense to remove AZ and Sonora from the Common atlas? Any rare corrections to the resulting Gray IDs could be then made by identifiers later, if needed. That would leave just CO, NM, west TX, and Chihuahua where buckeye IDs would revert to the genus level.

Tagging some others who may have more input on the atlases: @hypanartia, @upupamartin, @kwillmott, @djringer, @brian_banker

Posted by nlblock almost 3 years ago

What are you planning to do with Junonia coenia ssp. bergi and Junonia coenia ssp. coenia? Do they stay with Junonia coenia sensu stricto?

Also - instead of making a new Junonia coenia 1040786, lets use the input Junonia coenia 48505 as described here
https://www.inaturalist.org/blog/40417-using-a-taxon-split-input-as-an-output

This will leave all Junonia coenia 48505 ID's alone where the atlases overlap so it will be less disruptive. Does that make sense? Does that makes sense?

I already switched the taxa on the change, but Junonia coenia 48505 atlas needs an atlas for the sensu stricto sense. Can you make one? (e.g. recreate what you did for Junonia coenia 1040786)

Posted by loarie almost 3 years ago

That makes sense! I think I set this up before I knew about the taxon-input-as-output method that is now preferred. I just made the adjustments to the coenia (48505) atlas.

And yes, ssp. bergi and coenia will stay with coenia sensu stricto.

Posted by nlblock almost 3 years ago

nlblock this looks great. Thanks for your patience and hard work on this split. Once committed this should:
1) replace all IDs of Junonia coenia 48505 uniquely within the Junonia grisea 1021509 atlas with Junonia grisea 1021509
2) skip all IDs of Junonia coenia 48505 uniquely within the Junonia coenia 48505 atlas
3) replace all IDs in >1 or 0 atlases with Genus Junonia 48506

Please go ahead and commit. It will take a while, but once its done crunching (maybe 24 hours later) let me know if you see anything weird

Thanks!

Posted by loarie almost 3 years ago

Great! Thanks so much, @loarie!

Posted by nlblock almost 3 years ago

I love the way you guys work together for the good of all! Nuff said.

Posted by mokennon almost 3 years ago

Suggesting changing even a single record without personally looking at each and every specimen before doing so is 'dumb as a rock' thinking. That is not how taxonomical decisions are made. And another example of why non-scientific sites as these masquerading as scientific, are bad for science. Persons making such suggestions as meaningful haven't a clue about insect taxonomy, and such suggestions are more akin to school-age minds. Unless you personally have determined that this published info is valid beyond questioning, accepting these matters as true is folly. If the so-called professional experts can't agree on these matters, what makes you think changing such things willy-nilly have any validity. Anecdotal opinions have no place in science and are useless.

There are already too-many wanna-be experts out there now screwing up the scientific literature presently, many of which are employed as taxonomists and many have advanced educational degrees. But none of those stated qualifications or accomplishments mean any more than the opinions of high-school 'bug collectors'

And just because someone publishes something doesn't mean they are correct or their assumption are valid. Don't be in a big rush to jump out there believing anything in print and adding to the existing mess. Look carefully before you leap. Your 'name' will forever be attached to your boo-boos long after you pass on.
Vernon Antoine Brou Jr.

Posted by vabrou almost 3 years ago

Thanks for your comment, Vernon. Can you explain what specific problem(s) you might have about this particular split (which has no basis in anecdotal opinions, BTW)? The papers published on Junonia in the past couple years are pretty good science, in my professional opinion as someone with a lot of professional background in systematics. However, this split was not committed because of my opinion. iNaturalist taxonomy is largely based on accepted taxonomic authorities and changes are not made willy-nilly. In this case, North American butterfly taxonomy on iNat generally follows the Pelham catalogue, which has long been recognized as a rigorous authority.

Taxonomy is in constant flux in any group of organisms; it's never "true". It's just an interpretation of a body of evidence that is constantly being added to. As you seem to disagree with how iNat taxonomy changes happen, I'd love to hear any suggestions you have about how to improve the process. iNat's success, after all, is based largely on having a community of users providing input on such matters.

And for what it's worth, if your comment "Persons making such suggestions as meaningful haven't a clue about insect taxonomy, and such suggestions are more akin to school-age minds" is somehow directed at me, you're incorrect.

Posted by nlblock almost 3 years ago

@vabrou could you clarify? Are you concerns about:
1) the taxonomy that iNaturalist follows (Junonia coenia s.s. vs. Junonia coenia s.l.)?
or
2) (assuming our intent to split Junonia coenia) whether it's wise or not to use distribution to replace certain IDs of Junonia coenia with IDs of Junonia grisea (vs replacing them Junonia is prefereable)?

Posted by loarie almost 3 years ago

Thanks for the work on this.

After this split the J. grisea is not showing up as an option in the computer vision suggestions within its range. Currently (in California) it shows Common Buckeye but indicates it's out of range. Does that have to wait until the latest model run to show up?

Posted by iorek over 2 years ago

bad news is yes, good news is we're focusing on getting our model retrain interval to under 6 months and we're starting a new train this month

Posted by loarie over 2 years ago

Thanks @loarie. Good to know. Do you happen to know if there's an enhancement for this (taxon split shows local split species in vision)? Would that be worthwhile if the training intervals are coming down?

Posted by iorek over 2 years ago

were focusing on getting the training intervals down now before focusing on an enhancement

Posted by loarie over 2 years ago

It appears this entire discussion/matter is based upon the mistaken assumption and acceptance that these currently listed names of published species are in fact true and valid. Because these things are often published in pay per view publications, they immediately become suspect, as once published, they remain valid only because they have a highly extended life sitting there for decades hidden and unchallenged by future researchers. This is money controlling science. Later workers eventually finding this 'private' data assume these unchallenged publications must be valid as they have been around for extended periods of time. All of the arguments stated here on this page are in fact, just anecdotal opinions and assumptions. Any species name should be thoroughly investigated before cluttering up the scientific literature with more questionable facacta. Otherwise one can use the arguments mentioned here to make changes to every organism named.

I approach these matters from an entirely different level. Keep in mind that there are no one shoe size answers to any of this. E.g., I have been working on a moth species name that has existed for over a half century in North America. Though it has taken me more than many decades to research this matter, I have so far discovered that the original describing authors (PhDs) have determined at least 12 different valid species (described and undescribed) using this same 'one-species name', labeling and depositing hundreds of these misdeterminations in museums across North America, subsequent to the original description. Furthermore the original describing author's published 'TYPE' series of adults actually was made up of five different species more than a half century ago. Subsequent authors simply have passed on this valueless 'species name' without question. A grand 'faux pa'.

Before one builds a house, they should carefully design and build a worthy foundation. What is occurring here in these decisions is the building of a house without any regard to the foundation. Any taxonomical changes should be thoroughly investigated from the 'TYPE/HOLOTYPE' onward, not based upon unsubstantiated meaningless drivel. You may argue, how can we do that? Well if it were easy, anyone's anecdotal opinions would be considered valid in any argument. Because something appears impossible should not govern the directions we choose. We often describe this as 'COMMON SENSE'.

Posted by vabrou over 2 years ago

@vabrou, there's no such thing as a species being "in fact true and valid" because taxonomy is inherently subjective. Besides, none of that is relevant to how iNaturalist handles its taxonomy in butterflies. If you have an issue with the official taxonomy, take it up with Jonathan Pelham and his collaborators because his catalogue is the basis for iNaturalist's butterfly taxonomy for the U.S. and Canada.

Regardless, have you read the recent papers surrounding Junonia taxonomy? Because it sounds like you haven't. If you'd like copies, I'd be happy to send them to you. To imply that this work is "unsubstantiated meaningless drivel" is incredibly insulting because it couldn't be further from the truth.

You also seem misinformed about the scientific publishing process. Yes, pay walls are very frustrating, and I have lots of gripes with them, too. But that doesn't make the data "private", by any means, as anyone can access these papers using procedures like Interlibrary Loan. Or just try Sci-Hub: https://sci-hub.st/.

Posted by nlblock over 2 years ago

@nlblock "misinformed about the publishing process" -- Ha-ha- I have published to date 437 entomological research papers (1970-2021) over the past half century. And all of them are freely accessible as pdfs on the worldwide web. In fact, from just one site that has around 300 of my publications online, my publications have been downloaded tens of thousands of times from more than 140 countries of the world. And by the way, I have never had to pay anyone to publish anything, anywhere, or anytime, and why would any legitimate researcher publish their findings in a ill-fated, hidden and largely publicly inaccessible venue? Everything I have published exists in a print venue.

Your statement "because taxonomy is inherently subjective". Exactly my point, you have no comprehension/understanding about this subject whatsoever. Obviously you think you do. Tell me how many insect families have you successfully published on? how many generic revisions have you successfully published on? how many new species descriptions have you authored? How many new species have you discovered? How many patronyms have you been honored with by your peers? We stopped counting new species we discovered of just lepidoptera alone about 14 years ago, after reaching 400 new species in Louisiana alone. Our scientific reference collections here represents the largest private insect collection in existence in USA, Canada, Mexico combined. This is due to the self-funded collection beginning over 60 years ago and utilizing 450-500 unique automatic capture insect traps which have operated unabated 24 hours daily since 1969 (52 consecutive years). We have personally captured far in excess of numerous billions of insects. Among our lifetime of offshoot entomological accomplishments includes accumulations of the largest private collections on record of: 1. World Sphingidae (200,000 adults). World Eudocima (10,000 adults), Louisiana Sesiidae (400,000 adults), design of hundreds of unique and groundbreaking collecting equipment and collecting methods, novel methods for processing insects resulting in the highest quality examples, etc... How many "misinformed" people can state these things? But , not only record collections of insects, we possess perhaps the largest accumulation of scientific literature (esp. on Lepidoptera) mostly from the Civil War era forward. After all, how does one do research without knowing the past literature, good and bad?

My stated opinion was not directly concerning only Junonia, but truthfully all taxonomically related investigations. I don't care if 50 PhDs approved of the research. 99% of publications in our scientific literature records are flawed. Even if one has a certificate of authenticity from GOD, it changes nothing I said. I am aware of the Russian site you mention, it has been around for more than a decade. Never found anything there I was looking for in the past. Looking at the big picture, I think there are too many self-proclaimed experts that don't actually do much research at all, but make unsubstantiated declarations 'facts' based upon nothing but personal anecdotal opinions and unsubstantiated BS googled from the web. As we all know in the past 20 years, anyone who can click a mouse can publish anything, valid or garbage, and in between. This site e.g., I found one butterfly species in Louisiana which had over 1100 determinations by hundreds of individuals, and not a single one of the 1100 was taxonomically correct despite the correct clickable option already available on iNat.

Peace !!

Posted by vabrou over 2 years ago

Thanks everyone for keeping the conversation respectful and civil. Looking at iNaturalist as a whole, butterflies stand out as a clade with tons of attention/observations/species but no global external taxonomic reference.

In contrast, most other observose clades have a a reference (Clements for Birds, Reptile Database for Reptiles, POWO for vascular plants, World Odonata List for dragonflies, etc.)
And other clades without a reference don't have nearly as many observations or attention (eg. Bryophytes).

I think this is the source of these taxonomic issues on iNat. Since we're forced to stitch together regional lists (e.g. Pelham) and the primary literature, as nlblock said its harder to get community consensus on a single taxonomy that we all share when making obs and IDs which is what iNat depends on.

In light of the state of butterfly taxonomy, try to be patient and understanding and come with a spirit of compromise and consensus building with butterflies. Try not to take taxonomic changes personally and realize curators are doing the best we can given the messy state of butterfly taxonomy

From my perspective, it seems if we can even get consensus around tribes/genera globally by comparing the various major regional sources and bringing the players together that would be huge. Or if we could help get Pelham's changes reflected in https://www.butterfliesofamerica.com/L/Neotropical.htm that would be a huge help. I'm sure there's other ideas too...

Posted by loarie over 2 years ago

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