Lynx-BirdLife Taxonomic Checklist (2 Viewers)

[kuzeycem]

Finally!!!

 

[Melanie]

HBW Alive is online again but a lot of changes (e.g. woodpeckers, parrots) have been not implemented so far.

 

[Richard Klim]

HBW Alive is online again but a lot of changes (e.g. woodpeckers, parrots) have been not implemented so far.

The transition now looks complete to me.

 

[jalid]

Of the text chapters of species accounts, only taxonomy seems to have been updated. This is potentially very confusing, but not surprising. I think it is better this way than wait another year or so with taxonomic updates. Updating all the texts is far from straightforward task. Texts of lumps seem to have been disappeared but will surely appear later lumped with the other texts.

It is said that it will be possible to compare any taxonomic changes with the original HBW treatment, since this will remain available in HBW Alive. I have not yet figured out how this works.

 

[Melanie]

I wonder that HBW Alive did not mentioned the rediscovery of the White-rumped Woodpecker (Meiglyptes tristis) on Java. From Hume & Waters (2012, p 449): Birds were seen at Halimun in 2010 (R. Hutchinson & B van Balen in litt. 2010), after a lapse of 130 years.

Gorman state: However nominate on Java in grave danger as much of the island's lowland forest has been felled. Interesting that Gorman is only showing photos of Meiglyptes grammithorax (so did the OBC).

 

[Richard Klim]

HBW Alive

It's surprising that four days after transition to the new HBW/BirdLife non-passerine taxonomy, there's still no news of this important change on the HBW Alive website. (Many users who don't follow the Lynx facebook page are probably still unaware that it has happened.)

Perhaps Lynx has decided to adopt a low profile for now, until confident that there are no significant technical glitches.

 

[Richard Klim]

HBW Alive

Perhaps Lynx has decided to adopt a low profile for now, until confident that there are no significant technical glitches.

Lynx might be delaying a full announcement until all aspects of the transition have been completed. The family accounts still seem to be the original HBW versions. Those for lumped families (eg, Meleagrididae/Tetraonidae) have simply been removed, whilst those for new families (eg, Oceanitidae) are currently just stubs. IBC also still follows the original HBW taxonomy.

And, as jalid noted, the species accounts don't yet reflect the new taxonomy (splits, lumps etc) – except for the introductory (taxonomy) sections. So the detailed accounts for lumped species have been removed rather than merged into the parent species accounts; and newly-split species have rudimentary accounts but are still dealt with in detail under the original parent species. There's clearly still much to do before a consistently-organised treatment is re-established.

 

[Peter Kovalik]

pauper - variable name?

HBW/BL and Peters: Nyctanassa violacea pauper
H&M4 and IOC: Nyctanassa violacea paupera

It seems in H&M4 is omitted 'v' for this name (and also for Melanerpes aurifrons pauper) in the event that HBW/BL subspecific epithet is incorrect.

 

[l_raty]

HBW/BL and Peters: Nyctanassa violacea pauper
H&M4 and IOC: Nyctanassa violacea paupera

pauper, -eris [Lewis & Short, 1879, on Perseus]

It's a rather complex case.
- First, although the word stands in dictionaries as an adjective, its use in Latin as a substantive is ascertained (L&S: "Subst.: pauper, ĕris, comm., a poor man: “pauperum tabernae,” Hor. C. 1, 4, 13: “pauperum cenae,” id. ib. 3, 29, 14: “pauperum sepulcra,” id. Epod. 17, 47: “pauperiorum turbae,” id. S. 1, 1, 111."). The Code states that "Where the author of a species-group name did not indicate whether he or she regarded it as a noun or as an adjective, and where it may be regarded as either and the evidence of usage is not decisive, it is to be treated as a noun in apposition [...]" (Art. 31.2.2).
- Second, although the feminine was originally paupera, at a later stage pauper was used in the nominative for the three genders (L&S: "fem. paupera, Plaut. Fragm. ap. Serv. Verg. A. 12, 519, called obsolete by Varr. L. L. 8, § 77 Müll."; complete classical declension paradigm here).

I would leave it as pauper (which is the original spelling), but would be curious to hear the other side's argument.

PS - Additionally, and even if the OD gives no clue, "looking like a poor man" may be a more plausible interpretation for a grey and dull bird, than effectively "not wealthy".

 

[Richard Klim]

HBW Alive

New features, 21 Aug 2014:

Illustrated Checklist taxonomy

UPDATE 12 September 2014: All orders, families, species and subspecies are now displayed as on the Illustrated Checklist. New maps are visible on the latest revision, while the previous revisions of the species show the map from the HBW. Our editors are filling the sections of the splitted species as well as editing the mother species.

New features, 17 Sep 2014:

New taxonomy and other changes for non-passerines

Since the publication of the first volume of the Handbook of the Birds of the World, more than 20 years ago, there have been numerous taxonomic changes and revisions.
In order to address and document these changes, the HBW team and the BirdLife International Taxonomic Group decided to pool their taxonomic expertise to prepare a carefully studied checklist. In the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World, a modern, broad version of the Biological Species Concept (BSC) has been applied, with the aid of the scoring system to evaluate differences in morphology, vocalizations, ecology and geographical relationships published in Ibis by Tobias et al. (2010). Even though taxonomy always involves an element of subjectivity, we believe that using this system has important advantages in terms of consistency, repeatability, transparency and taxonomic stability. Click here for an outline of the Tobias criteria from the Introduction to the Checklist.

For the non-passerines, this assessment has resulted in relatively few lumps (22), but a much higher number of splits (462), compared with the taxonomy present in the HBW series, as well as changes of genera and reorganization of subspecies, helping us to better understand the relationships between the taxa. Also, the macrosystematics has been overhauled, bringing to light interesting relationships between and among families, subfamilies, tribes and genera.

All of these taxonomic changes have been applied to the non-passerines in HBW Alive. Besides the reclassification itself, subscribers will also find updates to these important elements:

1. MAPS: Newly revised BirdLife International and NatureServe distribution maps for all species, with country borders included.
2. ILLUSTRATIONS: New and improved figures, including those to illustrate split species and to correct detected errors from the HBW series.
3. RANGES: Detailed and updated descriptions of ranges for all species and subspecies.
4. TAXONOMIC NOTES: Changes and other relevant issues fully explained under Taxonomy for each species.
5. REFERENCES: The over 2000 references given in the Checklist are conveniently linked in the HBW Alive texts and quickly give users detailed information about the source.
6. IUCN RED LIST CATEGORIES: Current official IUCN category of each species from the 2014 BirdLife International/IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
7. NAMES: Revised Latin and English species names, as well as updates in French, German and Spanish names, and in other common names in English when appropriate.
8. SUBSPECIES GROUPS: Colour-coded subspecies groups marked to highlight distinct forms and their relationships.

Ornithological News, 19 Sep 2014:

Updated texts for non-passerines affected by new taxonomy

The HBW Alive editors are busy updating the texts for the non-passerine taxa that have changed under the new taxonomy applied to HBW Alive from the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World.

For example, for the split species, they must review the current information and search for more details on all aspects of the natural history of both the original "mother" species and the resulting "daughter" species. They are looking at everything from habitat and food and feeding, to breeding biology and migration, to give a clear picture of each of the newly defined species and, moreover, to show both similarities and differences between the original and resulting new taxa. This obviously requires a lot of specific research, so the process is going relatively slowly, but at least 55 species have already been reviewed. The same care will be required for lumped taxa and some other species cases. For some of these affected cases, the team will also need to change the links to photos and videos formerly placed in the broader original species, or to look for new ones, but this is also progressing steadily.

The species that have so far have received this editorial treatment belong to the following 17 families:

Struthionidae (Ostriches), Rheidae (Rheas), Tinamidae (Tinamous), Apterygidae (Kiwis), Phasianidae (Pheasants, Partridges, Turkeys and Grouse), Podicipedidae (Grebes), Phoenicopteridae (Flamingos), Otididae (Bustards), Gaviidae (Loons), Spheniscidae (Penguins), Diomedeidae (Albatrosses), Procellariidae (Petrels and Shearwaters), Ciconiidae (Storks), Threskiornithidae (Ibises and Spoonbills), Pelecanidae (Pelicans), Sulidae (Gannets and Boobies) and Anhingidae (Darters).

Other bird families soon to be covered include:

Megapodiidae (Megapodes), Cracidae (Guans, Chachalacas and Curasows), Numididae (Guineafowl), Odontophoridae (New World Quails), Oceanitidae (Southern Storm-petrels) and Hydrobatidae (Northern Storm-petrels).

 

[Peter Kovalik]

BirdLife, 16 May 2014: Additional changes to species listed as Extinct: six [edited from five] Extinct species are being re-categorised as Not Recognised and 12 taxa [edited from 11] are being newly recognised as Extinct species.

• Gallicolumba norfolciensis – Norfolk Island Ground-dove – Not Recognised

http://www.worldbirdnames.org/updates/species-updates/

Norfolk Ground Dove - Name formally suppressed; validity of species requires confirmation

HBW/BL Illustrated Checklist:

Gallicolumba sp.: Until recently the ground-dove species reported from Norfolk I was associated with the name Columba norfolciensis Latham, 1801; however, there is no type specimen for this name, and original description appears to be composite, perhaps referring to both Columba leucomela (infrequent vagrant to Norfolk I) and Chalcophaps longirostris (present on Norfolk I, possibly introduced), due to incertain identity, combined with confused usage spanning three rather different genera, this name has now been formally suppressed. Indeed, a fourth genus might now been applied, as with recent split of genus Gallicolumba (which see), present species, if valid, would most likely belong in Alopecoenas.

ICZN OPINION 2251 (Case 3442)

 

[jmorlan]

I assume those taxa were assessed using the Tobias scoring system. Masked Plover was split, but Dunlin wasn't.

Sorry to be late to the party here, but can you point me to the Tobias scoring system and how it was applied to the Masked Plover (Lapwing)? Does the Tobias system ignore well established and documented hybrid zones in determining species validity?

TIA.

 

[Richard Klim]

Masked Lapwing

Sorry to be late to the party here, but can you point me to the Tobias scoring system and how it was applied to the Masked Plover (Lapwing)?

Tobias et al 2010.

del Hoyo & Collar 2014 (Black-shouldered Lapwing (Vanellus novaehollandiae)) – gives Tobias criteria scores for the split.

Also: Taxonomic scoring system.

 

[Mysticete]

The Tobias criteria really isn't a BSC approach. Hybrid zones (at least in the strict sense) are not a factor in splitting/lumping species.

 

[jmorlan]

The Tobias criteria really isn't a BSC approach. Hybrid zones (at least in the strict sense) are not a factor in splitting/lumping species.

Actually they are. They ADD to the score. The existence of a well documented hybrid zone between the two races of Masked Lapwing was used to argue that they should be split.

...zone of intergradation would add a score (1 or 2 depending on width).

The fact that hybridization is treated in these criteria as a positive rather than a negative characteristic in determining species rank must appear counterintuitive to many people who, perhaps for many decades, have assumed that almost any serious degree of hybridization between two taxa is evidence of their reproductive compatibility and hence of their conspecificity. The fact that at least 9% of all bird species have interbred in the wild (Grant & Grant 1992) tends, however, to suggest that hybridization is on the one hand a widespread and common phenomenon and on the other very rarely capable of producing significant changes in parent taxa (mostly on oceanic islands and only as a result of anthropogenic interference).....

This scoring system would appear to be the opposite of the BSC, if such a thing is possible. My understanding is that some IUCN members were not too happy with having this taxonomy pushed on them.

 

[l_raty]

Actually they are. They ADD to the score.

Is there anything really new there, though...? Eg., in 2002, Helbig et al wrote:

Otherwise diagnosable taxa will be termed semi-species if:
3.2 a stable, distinct hybrid zone joins them. We regard a hybrid zone as distinct if historically it has changed little in breadth (although it may have moved in position) and if local populations contain one or both pure phenotypes (phenotypically indistinguishable from birds in the respective allopatric areas) plus first-generation and back-cross hybrids. Such cases always indicate a substantial restriction of gene flow, e.g. Carrion Crow Corvus corone and Hooded Crow C. cornix (reviewed by Parkin et al. in prep.).

To "be termed semi-species" = to be split.
Note that, here, diagnosability + a "distinct hybrid zone" = case closed. The hybrid zone doesn't just add to a divergence score; it dispenses you entirely from taking the degree of divergence into account.

 

[Richard Klim]

BirdLife vs BOU

Is there anything really new there, though...? Eg., in 2002, Helbig et al wrote...

Overall, the BirdLife Taxonomic Working Group criteria (Tobias et al 2010) appear to be more conservative than the BOURC Taxonomic Subcommittee guidelines (Helbig et al 2002).

Tobias et al includes a test case against the Helbig et al guidelines. Of a selection of 23 potential splits, only 2 pairs of taxa (9%) qualified for species status under the Tobias criteria, whereas 17 pairs (74%) qualified under the BOU guidelines.

So if the BOU guidelines were to be applied on a worldwide basis, there would presumably be a significantly larger number of splits (compared with HBW/BirdLife)...?

 

[jmorlan]

Is there anything really new there, though...? Eg., in 2002, Helbig et al wrote:

To "be termed semi-species" = to be split.
Note that, here, diagnosability + a "distinct hybrid zone" = case closed. The hybrid zone doesn't just add to a divergence score; it dispenses you entirely from taking the degree of divergence into account.

Short (Auk: 86:90, 1969) defined semispecies as species which form a zone of overlap and hybridization (or potentially capable of so doing)..." Subspecies "hybridize in a hybrid zone." Now HBW, Tobias, and apparently Helbig and other authors have completely turned the concept of semispecies upside down and confused it with subspecies. It also seems they have confused the terms "hybrid zone" with "zone of overlap and hybridization." The two are not the same at all and under the criteria laid out by Short provide a measure of distinguishing between species and subspecies in areas of contact. Either there is sympatry or there is a hybrid zone. Either there are isolating mechanisms, or there aren't.

This new scheme appears to turn everything that has a hybrid zone into a new species and allows subspecies only under what conditions? [Shrug]. I don't get it.

 

[l_raty]

Short (Auk: 86:90, 1969) defined semispecies as species which form a zone of overlap and hybridization (or potentially capable of so doing)..." Subspecies "hybridize in a hybrid zone."

Words are certainly playing a significant role, here, as indeed Short 1969 wrote:

The term "hybrid zone" has been loosely used to designate any area of secondary contact in which hybrids occur. I restrict a "hybrid zone" (see below) to include an area of hybridization where only hybrids occur, as distinguished from a "zone of overlap and hybridization. I prefer to include both of these categories within the category of secondary intergradation, thus retaining the latter general term for all situations involving hybridization and backcrossing between allopatric forms in a secondary contact.

...while Helbig et al 2002 explicitly restricted the term to its other possible meaning:

Populations in a hybrid zone contain one or both pure phenotypes of the hybridizing taxa plus first-generation and backcross hybrids; an example is the zone of contact between crows Corvus cornix and C. corone in Northern Italy (Rolando 1993). This distinguishes it from a clinal transition zone, in which local populations are intermediate between populations on either side of the zone, but are phenotypically uniform [...]

Thus indeed Helbig et al's "hybrid zones" could be seen as Short's "zones of overlap and hybridization", while Short's "hybrid zones" would probably be a special case of what Helbig et al call "transition zones". What are Tobias et al's "hybrid zones"...?

(I don't really like Short's terminology, actually. Particularly in that, due to how he restricted the various terms, what he ended up calling "intergrades" (p.84) was more restricted than what he would have called "the products of intergradation"... To me this is inconsistent: these two things must be the same. Also, in practice, when a clinal transition zone separates two taxa, it is often completely impossible to say with any level of confidence whether this represents primary or secondary intergradation. Thus, if you restrict "intergrades" to "the products of primary intergradation", the word ends up defined in terms of theoretical biogeography but rather useless in practice, as it refers to something that cannot really be recognized.)

 

[jmorlan]

Yes, this is confusing when authors use the same words to mean different things. As you point out, Short's use of the term "intergrades" is not completely clear, but I think his application of the term is clear. Whether intergrades are the consequence of a hybrid zone in secondary contact, or of primary intergradation, the diagnosable taxa connected by intergradation are not species, they are not semispecies, they are subspecies.

Going back to HBW, and the Masked Lapwings, they say "...zone of intergradation would add a score (1 or 2 depending on width)." I'm pretty sure they are not talking about a zone of overlap and hybridization with sympatry, they are talking about a well documented hybrid zone (intergradation) which they use in argument to split these two subspecies. Perhaps there is more to this than I understand. Perhaps something got lost in translation, but my jaw drops when I read that a zone of intergradation ADDS to a score used to split closely related taxa. To me this is not only something new, but something quite radical and divergent from classical BSC.