Lampropeltis. זה קורה כשאין ביכולתנו להגדיר זיהוי לאחד הטקסונים היוצאים באופן אוטומטי.
מעבר על זיהויים של Lampropeltis triangulum 29777
Taxonomic Split 18099
(הועלה ב 2017-03-27)
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Oh, I dunno... just the Rio Grande separating two species that act alike, look alike, and live in the exact (and I mean IDENTICAL) habitat... and I can assure you that there is definitely gene-flow between these populations. I may be mistaken, but isn't there updated research on these guys that someone else could shed some light on here? It may change before you get all of this updated! :-)
Not to come across as a nay-sayer (because this group definitely needed to be visited taxonomy-wise!), this is one of those splits that I feel does not have enough data from contact zones to warrant changes. It is a great START, but I don't think that this is an end-all-be-all split...
God, do I sound like an old fart who doesn't like change or what?! LOL!
I obviously don't like these cryptic species splits, but whether or not we like it or think it makes biological sense is not the point. The appropriateness of a taxon change should be judged by how well it aligns with the external authorities we try to follow. In this case it aligns perfectly with our external authorities covering reptiles with no conflict, so I say do it.
What does confuse me here is the range of the old concept, http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/29777-Lampropeltis-triangulum, which doesn't even come close to covering the ranges of all the output taxa, e.g. in Central and South America. Is that because our range for that species sucks?
Yes, the deal with the incomplete http://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/29777-Lampropeltis-triangulum range (ie. lacking areas south of Northern Mexico) is that it was made by NatureServe which only concerned itself with enough of Mexico to fit on a US-Canada bounding box. When IUCN decided to take on NorthAmer Reptiles, it got the ranges from NatureServe, but a few species like Lampropeltis triangulum came over with incomplete range maps. [UPDATE: I updated the Lampropeltis triangulum (sensu lato) map to include the complete range]
For the record, I'm not a fan of this split either but as Ken-ichi says, its a cost that comes with following external authorities...
Yeah, please don't misinterpret my disagreement with this split (as currently accepted!), as me not going along with the rules that are set out. (On second thought, maybe I should protest! LOL!) It is what it is... and the animals don't give a care as to what we call them on I-Naturalist. Rather, it's just me belly-aching about what I feel is yet another example of a split that is based on incomplete work (particularly sampling!). I totally agree with the premise of the study, just not the results. No one will ever be able to convince me that the animals on the north side of the Rio Grande are more closely related to the specimens found in the Texas Panhandle than they are to the specimens found a mere few km away. This is in NO WAY intended as a slight towards @loarie in any way, in fact KUDOS to him for taking the time to work on this mess!! Thanks @loarie!
Oh, and can someone please fix the photo for Lampropeltis annulata? That photo is of a west-coast Lampropeltis triangulum sina... oh wait... a Lampropeltis polyzona...
As well as the Lampropeltis triangulum... that photo is of what was at one time known as a Pueblan Milksnake...
;-)
I have been a student of triangulum (and other kingsnakes) for 40 some years and much as I have found utility in the formerly recognized subspecies (Williams two works), and found the recent work by Ruane et. al. interesting but incomplete (resulting in more questions regarding where splits actually do occur then the former intergrade zones between more numerous taxa). There is and will be more work going on in the future (I am participating as a contributor in at least one work). I will perhaps find it challenging to pick the most correct of the recent fewer taxa but can conform to the recent divisions with the hope that a better picture can be synthesized in the future and the taxa IDs can be moved as appropriate.
This is a challenging situation. You can take the line that says iNat taxonomy follows the ASIH-HL-SSAR list (which of course is a list to standardize common names and is NOT intended to regulate use of scientific names), in which case there isn't really any need for this discussion at all. If you always want to follow that rule, then do so, though that rational seems strange to me given that the list is intended to standardize common names and not scientific names.
This split is an excellent example of why it doesn't make sense to always follow that list for scientific names. It is quite clear from the Ruane et al study that the sampling is extremely poor for testing species boundaries. Additional re-analyses of the Ruane et al dataset that have been given in public talks though not yet published clearly show substantial gene flow among the proposed species. Given the sampling concerns and that there is clear gene flow among these "species," then why change scientific names before there is at least some reasonable level of confidence in the herpetological community. Will the names be changed back in a few months or years when this new work is published?
Again, this is a challenging situation. We need a name so we can effectively communicate about the organisms. It is not clear to me why some scientists propose nomenclatural changes based on such limited evidence. The Ruane et al dataset suggests some new hypotheses, and those hypotheses could have been discussed and could have stimulated further research with better sampling aimed at testing species boundaries. All of this could have been done without the destabilizing act of proposing new names.
As far as I can tell the purpose of the SSAR database is to standardize common and scientific names, hence the name "North American Standard English & Scientific Names Database." I'm sure their choices are imperfect, but it's also not clear to me what alternative authorities exist. If you don't like the SSAR choices, I suggest you contact Brian I. Crother (bcrother@selu.edu), chair of the Scientific and Standard English Names Committee at SSAR and describe your grievances to him, though frankly it seems like the primary fault lies with Ruane et al. and the reviewers who allowed that paper and its nomenclatural acts to be published in the first place.
2 quick venting thoughts:
1) to me the necessity to revise taxonomic concepts when they are found to be non-mono-phyletic makes sense. Thats the example here where it was discovered that species like California Mountain Kingsnake fall out within Milksnake. That makes Milksnake paraphyletic which should be addressed.
But I don't understand why (a) the trend is always to split rather than lump (e.g. lumping CA Mountain Kingsnake etc. into Milksnake would also make MIlksnake monophyletic) and (b) these papers tend to split more than is necessary to resolve the paraphyl (e.g. splitting into 2 species [Lampropeltis gentilis+Lampropeltis annulata+Lampropeltis triangulum] and [Lampropeltis polyzona+Lampropeltis abnorma+Lampropeltis micropholis] would have done the trick)
2) But to me the much more disturbing trend are all these splits in the pipe that don't resolve any paraphyly and just seem to split base on the argument that there's variation within a grouping.
For example this paper that splits off another desert tortoise http://zookeys.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=6124 and this paper that splits off another indigo snake http://www.mapress.com/j/zt/article/view/zootaxa.4138.3.9. These papers even include 'zones of integration' on their maps! And you can bet its just a matter of time before SSAR incorporates these changes.
But venting aside, beyond externally lobbying groups like SSAR to be more conservative (as Ken-ichi mentioned), it seems like internally all we can do is try to make iNat as nimble and adaptable to taxonomic change as possible and adopt them when external authorities like SSAR do unless we want to go down the whole rabbit hole of forming our own internal SSAR-like committees which might arguably make better decisions from the iNat-natural history perspective but would also surely be a ton of work, and duplicative to what groups like SSAR are trying to do...
Ken-ichi and Scott, I have done exactly what you suggest of advocating for a far more conservative approach when it comes to recognizing proposed name changes. See:
Pauly, G. B., D. M. Hillis, and D. C. Cannatella. 2009. Taxonomic freedom and the role of official lists of species names. Herpetologica 65:115–128.
This can be downloaded here:
http://www.nhm.org/site/research-collections/herpetology/staff-biographies/pauly/publications
Ruane et al. and other similar papers are making taxonomic proposals. It is up to the scientific user community to accept/reject such proposals based on their usage. The problem with the current situation in herpetology is that you have a very small group having a tremendous impact on usage. Many of the proposals for changes to North American snake taxonomy come out of Burbrink's lab (senior author on Ruane et al.). Similarly, following Frost et al 2006, many of the proposals were from Frost. Both Frost and Burbrink are the lead authors on the snake and frog sections of the SSAR/HL/ASIH list. Further, Frost is also lead author for the ITIS list. Thus, a small number of people have a very large role in influencing name usage.
On the one hand, this could be a good thing because those with taxonomic expertise are sharing that expertise. On the other hand, this can also lead to a disproportionate impact from a small group, especially if those people are making taxonomic proposals based on weak evidence, which I think many here and elsewhere in the community are suggesting for the gentilis/annulata/triangulum split.
Taxonomic lists are snapshot in time. I would advocate that such snapshots work to standardize common names and for scientific names present a true depiction of the current debate. Mention the recent, relevant papers so that users can quickly and easily assess the literature and make an informed decision.
I realize that none of what I have written above solves anything for iNaturalist. You need a name to use and need a way to pick it. So to your original question of do you see any problems with this split, then my answer is yes; it is based on limited evidence with very poor geographic sampling and we know there is research in progress that advocates an alternative. But if you want to always follow the rule of using the SSAR/ASIH/HL list (which really should not be for standardizing scientific names as I discuss in the 2009 paper), then do so. Just realize that there will be a fair bit of back and forth over time as proposals are more rigorously vetted. And people like me, who don't like the changed name...well, tough. There are far bigger issues in biology than if and where you draw a split among some milksnakes, or rosy boas, or mtn kingsnakes, etc.
hey folks - I was holding off on committing this until https://groups.google.com/d/msg/inaturalist/L_R7i12PjzQ/5UN_75vmBQAJ which will automatically move most obs to the proper-split-child based on range (re realized big splits like this were super destructive to ID efforts so paused big splits until this was in place). But now that this is in place, I'd like to commit this. People are already using the inactive Lampropeltis gentilis so it would be nice to be able to say we're in line with RD and SSAR here
Alright I committed this - hopefully wasn't two destructive thanks to the recent changes
@gtsalmon @sandboa @toby - damn, I just realized that the Ruane et al., 2013 map (immediately below) differs from the Powell et all map (subsequently below). The Powell map does put southern TX snakes in L. annullata as you guys have been advising. Should we go with that? I'll update the ranges, make sure L. annullata is listed in TX (ie not a Mexican endemic), and withdraw my IDs from last night - sorry about the confusion...
You are forgiven. We like you.
I think that the Powell book is a better reflection of the distributions than the Ruane et al paper. I don't agree with many of the splits that have been coming out of Burbrink lab but am happy for the most part in the way that iNat is handling them. As a museum curator I can wait a decade or more on these controversial splits and when the dust settles go back and make changes that have stood the test of time but also understand that is not a good tactic for iNat. There are plenty more messes in the herpetological world that are on the way, for example how do we handle the splits in Agkistrodon piscivorus and Agkistrodon contortrix? Those have been split with wide areas (100s of miles) designated as hybrid zones!
Any thoughts on the recent Chambers, Marshall, & Hillis paper*? Looks like the Reptile Database has resynonymized L. gentilis with L. triangulum but GBIF has not.
*doi: 10.1093/sysbio/syac056
Can you resend that link to the Chambers, Marshall, & Hillis paper? Or email it to me at mprice@lnra.org? The link is not working...
@wild-about-texas, apologies, the link should be fixed now.
The paper is cited in the Reptile Database entry for L. triangulum, albeit erroneously as “Chalmers et al. 2022”.
fellow kingsnake enthusiasts (@gtsalmon, @gregpauly, @tiwane, @kueda, @toby, @wild-about-texas) - here's a Milk Snake split I hope to commit this week that will bring iNat in line with SSAR and Reptile Database for this oft-observed snake. Let me know if you have any concerns or see any issues with this split. - thanks for the help, scott