Which taxonomy? (2 Viewers)

[Earnest lad]

I don't keep a life list online, but rather, have a spreadsheet (in a dropbox folder) on my PC. I would like to enquire which authority is "the one"? For example, should one use "ioc" or, maybe, "Clements". Which of the several authorities is the most popular or widely used please.

 

[THE_FERN]

I don't keep a life list online, but rather, have a spreadsheet (in a dropbox folder) on my PC. I would like to enquire which authority is "the one"? For example, should one use "ioc" or, maybe, "Clements". Which of the several authorities is the most popular or widely used please.

Whichever you want or agree with. There's a concordance spreadsheet somewhere (released with ? IOC) which cross references many of the main ones.

Taxonomy is an art not a science. It uses the results of science. Whether a taxonomy is "correct" or not in your view will reflect your underlying view of speciation (e.g. is the biological species concept the best one?) and the relative weights you put on different characters (genes vs behaviour for example)

Many people now use ebird taxonomy for convenience because it's built into the app; world listers often use IOC as it counts more species. Support for that is in (e.g.) iGoTerra.

 

[James Lowther]

I am in a tiny minority as I use Howard and Moore/Dickinson for personal historical reasons, but if I was choosing afresh I would pick IOC in a flash.
All info is freely available on the web, the list is updated regularly and the taxonomic approach tends to favour splits so you get regular endorphin boosts from armchair ticks, particularly welcome in these fraught times.
As an added bonus for Brits, BOU uses the IOC taxonomy now so there is no possibility of conflicts between your British and world lists etc.
Cheers,
James

 

[Earnest lad]

Whichever you want or agree with. There's a concordance spreadsheet somewhere (released with ? IOC) which cross references many of the main ones.

Taxonomy is an art not a science. It uses the results of science. Whether a taxonomy is "correct" or not in your view will reflect your underlying view of speciation (e.g. is the biological species concept the best one?) and the relative weights you put on different characters (genes vs behaviour for example)

Many people now use ebird taxonomy for convenience because it's built into the app; world listers often use IOC as it counts more species. Support for that is in (e.g.) iGoTerra.

I agree. Much of the science that underpins much taxonomy is in my view flawed and one doesn't therefore want to embrace too closely any one particular authority. Rather one might loosely use it (cautiously) to arrange a list of birds one has sighted. Thank you for the kind suggestions - I think I the concordance spreadsheet referred to is intriging and I will look further into this LOL

 

[Earnest lad]

I am in a tiny minority as I use Howard and Moore/Dickinson for personal historical reasons, but if I was choosing afresh I would pick IOC in a flash.
All info is freely available on the web, the list is updated regularly and the taxonomic approach tends to favour splits so you get regular endorphin boosts from armchair ticks, particularly welcome in these fraught times.
As an added bonus for Brits, BOU uses the IOC taxonomy now so there is no possibility of conflicts between your British and world lists etc.
Cheers,
James

Thank you so much. I think I am leaning toward IOC. Mind you I feel a lot of this "splitting" may be suspect and makes the whole business of keeping a list harder. As The Fern said below, there are more splits on IOC. Which list has fewest species?

 

[James Lowther]

Thank you so much. I think I am leaning toward IOC. Mind you I feel a lot of this "splitting" may be suspect and makes the whole business of keeping a list harder. As The Fern said below, there are more splits on IOC. Which list has fewest species?

Of the 4 major world checklists Howard and Moore has the fewest species. Splits that are unique to Howard and Moore are rare (but not unknown). Updates are infrequent. So if stability is your thing you might prefer it. But it has none of the advantages of IOC as outlined above.
You do need to be realistic as to how much stability you can expect from any list though. H&M changes slowly and conservatively but it changes nevertheless. Number, order, nomenclature etc of species has changed hugely over the last decades and will continue to do so. This is inevitable as more scientific studies are published
Cheers
James

 

[James Lowther]

Comparison spreadsheets are here by the way

Master Lists – IOC World Bird List

James

 

[Earnest lad]

Of the 4 major world checklists Howard and Moore has the fewest species. Splits that are unique to Howard and Moore are rare (but not unknown). Updates are infrequent. So if stability is your thing you might prefer it. But it has none of the advantages of IOC as outlined above.
You do need to be realistic as to how much stability you can expect from any list though. H&M changes slowly and conservatively but it changes nevertheless. Number, order, nomenclature etc of species has changed hugely over the last decades and will continue to do so. This is inevitable as more scientific studies are published
Cheers
James

I must have a look at Howard and Moore. To be honest I haven't got acquaintance with it. Please can you advise is there a dedicated H&M spreadsheet downloadable?

 

[Earnest lad]

Comparison spreadsheets are here by the way

Master Lists – IOC World Bird List

James

Thank you so much. This page is most helpful

 

[James Lowther]

I must have a look at Howard and Moore. To be honest I haven't got acquaintance with it. Please can you advise is there a dedicated H&M spreadsheet downloadable?

Try here

Links - The Trust for Avian Systematics

Links - The Trust for Avian Systematics

www.aviansystematics.org

Link wasn’t working for me though.
James

 

[Andy Adcock]

Whichever you want or agree with. There's a concordance spreadsheet somewhere (released with ? IOC) which cross references many of the main ones.

Taxonomy is an art not a science. It uses the results of science. Whether a taxonomy is "correct" or not in your view will reflect your underlying view of speciation (e.g. is the biological species concept the best one?) and the relative weights you put on different characters (genes vs behaviour for example)

Many people now use ebird taxonomy for convenience because it's built into the app; world listers often use IOC as it counts more species. Support for that is in (e.g.) iGoTerra.

ebird isn't a recognised, listing authority though is it and I'd say that it is far more liberal in what it counts than the IOC is?

My advice would be, pick one and stick with it, don't fuss about what other lists are doing. I use the IOC for reasons given by James Lowther but I can honestly say that the number of splits was not a consideration. I've have never looked at another list since I started with the IOC, I keep abreast of taxonomic matters as much as I can, if the IOC accept something I count it, if they don't, I don't, very simple.

The IOC list in combination with the Scythebill listing platform, provides a very convenient way to keep your records.

 

[Steve Lister]

ebird isn't a recognised, listing authority though is it and I'd say that it is far more liberal in what it counts than the IOC is?

eBird matches the Clements/Cornell taxonomy exactly.

 

[pbjosh]

eBird matches the Clements/Cornell taxonomy exactly.

Not quite - there are occasional times when they recognize splits that Clements has not recognized. Mexican Duck is / was such a case. I don’t recall others but there have been 1-2 more. It generally tracks Clements but might occasionally be slightly ahead or have a small handful of discrepancies.

 

[Steve Lister]

Not quite - there are occasional times when they recognize splits that Clements has not recognized. Mexican Duck is / was such a case. I don’t recall others but there have been 1-2 more. It generally tracks Clements but might occasionally be slightly ahead or have a small handful of discrepancies.

Surely eBird and Clements are now one and the same thing? Both Cornell. Both updated at the same time.

 

[pbjosh]

Surely eBird and Clements are now one and the same thing? Both Cornell. Both updated at the same time.

Sorry, you’re definitely correct on this - these are the (few) cases of eBird / Clements diverging from NACC/AOU.

Apparently eBird taxonomy goes a bit beyond Clements however in having subspecies groups and other sort of “field/birder recognizable” forms that can be logged, subspecies groups, and also common slash species / hard to tell groups (ie, Pacific-slope/Cordilleran Fly, Willow Warb/Chiffchaff).

 

[Andy Adcock]

Surely eBird and Clements are now one and the same thing? Both Cornell. Both updated at the same time.

Not to nit pick but the authority quoted as the one you follow, should be Clements, not ebird who simply follow Clements?

 

[Mysticete]

Sorry, you’re definitely correct on this - these are the (few) cases of eBird / Clements diverging from NACC/AOU.

Apparently eBird taxonomy goes a bit beyond Clements however in having subspecies groups and other sort of “field/birder recognizable” forms that can be logged, subspecies groups, and also common slash species / hard to tell groups (ie, Pacific-slope/Cordilleran Fly, Willow Warb/Chiffchaff).

Clements also has subspecies groups. Presumably the ebird groups are based on these.

 

[Mysticete]

Not to nit pick but the authority quoted as the one you follow, should be Clements, not ebird who simply follow Clements?

Yep, ebird = Clements for all intents and purposes

 

[Mysticete]

My own two cents:

If you ebird a lot, and/or you are based in a USA/Canada (or really anywhere in the New World), than Clements is the best option. It will generally match with both Ebird and the ABA checklist.

If you are based in the UK or elsewhere, or a hardcore world birder, than IOC is the list to go with. It's generally more responsive to taxonomic changes in other parts of the world and is updated regularly, and the website is really easy to use and follow.

I probably wouldn't follow Howard and Moore. Its more conservative, but partly that is due to simply not being updated yearly or multiple times a year. It doesn't mean it inherently chooses to lump rather than split, but just you will probably get major waves of splits all at once.

Birds of the World and Birdlife International I think also have checklists. THe latter however will probably get merged (if it hasn't already) into Clements. The latter I know was seen as a bit more radical but I am also unsure how much updating it is get.

At any rate, it seems likely that several of these will probably be soon merged into one major new checklist, as that has been the talk.

For what its worth, I follow IOC for my world checklist, but do also keep an ABA checklist for my US/Canada list.

 

[THE_FERN]

And then there's the "best"of the lot: taxonomy in flux... Seriously, though, there will never be nor should there ever be one taxonomy. Ideally you'll not just tick the birds off but learn about them. So you'll appreciate Cassia crossbill whether or not you agree it's a species and you'll be aware of what makes it special.