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BOU TSC disbanded (1 Viewer)

A bit too much African stuff embedded in Sylvia for me... ;)
(Not "just" Horizorhinus and Pseudoalcippe. Also Parophasma and Lioptilus, it seems. All closer to atricapilla than Curruca spp.)
 
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Nutcracker said:
Aye, replaced by Reed Bunting. Possibly. If they can find one :C
With all buntings getting so scarce these days, what will be the last entry on the average UK "ordinary birders list"?
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Reed Bunting has become a common winter visitor to village gardens here (in mid-Somerset) in recent years, with parties of up to a dozen birds sometimes present at our feeders.
 
Richard Klim said:
Reed Bunting has become a common winter visitor to village gardens here (in mid-Somerset) in recent years, with parties of up to a dozen birds sometimes present at our feeders.
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Lucky you! I have to go 3 km to see Reed Bunting. There's not been a bunting of any species on my local patch for something like 20-30 years. I'd suspect similar will apply to lots of other birders who don't have wetland or farmland on their patches.
 
We are running into problems with pied woodpecker genera again, I'm afraid.

Since Dickinson and Remsen 2013:312 (validly, even if inconsequently IMHO) designated Picus (Chloropicus) pyrrhogaster Malherbe 1845 as the type species of Chloropicus Malherbe 1845, the latter has priority over Dendropicos Malherbe 1849 for a genus that "combine the genera Leiopicus and Dendrocoptes with Dendropicos" sensu Fuchs and Pons 2015. (As this genus, unavoidably, includes pyrrhogaster.)
Therefore, if these generic limits are to be accepted, Middle Spotted Woodpecker must now be Chloropicus medius, not Dendropicos medius.

(Or the Commission must be asked to set aside this type designation.)

----
PS -- Just to be clear: the TSC is in no way responsible for this mess. Chloropicus should never have been resurrected, as it fulfilled the conditions to be declared a nomen oblitum; and the designation of pyrrhogaster was made against Recommendation 69A.3 of the ICZN, as this species was directly subsequently excluded from the genus by its very author, and never again considered to be part of it until 2013. However, the name was resurrected, and therefore cannot be declared a nomen oblitum any more, and the "violation" of a Recommendation does not invalidate a type designation. Thus we are stuck with this.
 
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It does sound to me like the code has missed some opportunities to work in the way that most people thought it was supposed to: to conserve status quo.

Niels
 
Well, this type of thing is not supposed to happen, and what was done was against what the Code recommends. But the Code indeed fails to make it impossible.
(See [here] for more details on this case.)
 
Birdlife Taxonomy and BOU

I would anticipate that the BOU might wish to adopt the BirdLife Taxonomy as this is the taxonomy followed by IUCN and more recently adopted by the EU. If that is the reason then it would be helpful to be transparent on this.

See below which I have copied from the Lynx HBW website


HBW-Birdlife Illustrated Checklist adopted by the European Union:

The European Union has adopted the HBW and BirdLife International Illustrated Checklist of the Birds of the World (Volume 1) as the standard reference for bird taxonomy and nomenclature for non-passerine species. The HBW-Birdlife Checklist will be used for the updated EU bird list (see the announcement in the European Comission website). As well as the Birds Directive, this list will also be used for the implementation of the Directive on the protection of the environment through criminal law and the Directive on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage.

With this last resolution the HBW-Birdlife Illustrated Checklist increases its influence as the taxonomy and nomenclature followed by most European countries.

In November 2014 the HBW-Birdlife Illustrated Checklist was adopted by the United Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) as the standard reference for bird taxonomy and nomenclature for non-passerine species.

This taxonomy was also adopted by BirdLife International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), including The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.




StevePreddy said:
I have been trying to get to the bottom of exactly what has led BOU to disband their taxonomic subcommittee. As most of the members of BOU’s council are staff members of public bodies, I thought I’d try submitting some Freedom of Information Act requests, but unfortunately this was of very limited use. The responses included “sorry, we have no relevant information” and “sorry, this information will take too much staff time to collate” (both valid excuses under the Act if true). Of more interest was that several of the public bodies told me that while there was relevant information to disclose, the holder of the information wished to claim an exemption under section 40 of the Act which safeguards “personal data”. From my previous experience of FOI, this exemption is typically used to protect things like names and addresses of private individuals, or other more sensitive data, from being disclosed: typically if a document contains a mix of non-personal and personal data, the public body will “redact” (block out) the personal information, thus addressing valid privacy concerns, while being able to release the non-personal information.

The use of this exemption in this instance seems to be quite a novel one, whereby personal data is defined as “opinions which the holder wishes not to be made public”: the FOI officer of one of the public bodies concerned shared my scepticism over whether this was a valid use of section 40. The justification cited in several cases was that the individual council members serve in a private capacity rather than representing public bodies. This is despite the fact that BOU lists the public bodies against each member’s name on their website, and that the only members of BOU council who are not employed by a public body are employed by or are a senior officer of the RSPB or the BTO, suggesting organisational sponsorship is a de facto entry requirement for membership. Anyway...

I then tried a different tack and approached two BOU council members who I felt may be close to the decision (Keith Hamer, BOU’s chair of council, and Helen Baker, who works for the UK government’s conservation advisory body, JNCC) to ask if they would like to voluntarily offer up any further information. Both in large part declined. Among the reasons I put to them why releasing more information might be a wise course for the BOU was that various rumours about the decision seem to be becoming established, and that it would be far better for an accurate account to be placed in the public domain if the rumours aren’t true. The rumours that I’ve heard repeatedly are: (i) that coercion by JNCC influenced the decision, (ii) that TSC members were sidelined in the decision-making after pointing out the problems with the Birdlife methodology to BOU council, and (iii) the decision actually taken was not the publicly-stated "disband TSC and see where the land lies" but instead that BOU will be using the Birdlife taxonomy, the line about lack of a Europe-wide consensus being a cover story, so goes this rumour. I suspect some of these are extrapolation or possibly even invention, which is why I think it would be better for BOU to be more transparent. What I found fascinating though in the responses received was that while the rumour about JNCC coercion was strongly denied, no comment at all was made on the other points. Curiouser and curiouser...
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So BOURC TSC is the latest casualty of the emerging United States of Europe and David Cameron has had to disband it to please Junker and Tusk? It's good to see at least one Brit (NC) having influence at the European level!

cheers, a
 
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Why do the people keep feeling the need to blame the US for this? There is zero movement amongst New World taxonomic bodies to follow the Birdlife taxonomy. If anything, its where I have seen the strongest criticism for the checklist. Don't blame us if your local committees fails you.
 
Rüppell's Warbler

Richard Klim said:
Sangster, Collinson, Crochet, Kirwan, Knox, Parkin & Votier 2016. Taxonomic recommendations for Western Palearctic birds: 11th report. Ibis 158(1): 206–212. [pdf]
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Provides a reminder that BOURC retains the spelling rueppelli (cf BirdLife, HBW, eBird/Clements), rather than ruppeli (H&M4, IOC, AERC TAC, DB).

H&M4...
Curruca ruppeli (Temminck, 1823) RÜPPELL'S WARBLER
Original spelling; internal evidence supports this. Emendation to e.g. rueppelli as used by Watson (1986) and Dickinson (2003) was unjustified.
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AERC TAC 2012...
Rüppell's Warbler Sylvia ruppeli (was Sylvia rueppelli)
Notice the correct spelling. Temminck used the spelling ruppeli in the text for the plate 245 and ruppelii in the "Tableau méthodique". As explained by Dickinson (2001), the plate 245 and the accompanying text were published in 1823 while the "Tableau méthodique" was published after 1836 (in 1838 or 1839 according to Dickinson pers. com.). The original spelling is thus ruppeli. The specific epithet is sometimes spelt rueppelli because the species is dedicated to the nineteenth-century German naturalist Eduard Rüppell. However, the spelling Ruppel is used consistently by Temminck throughout the text and for the French name ("Bec-fin Ruppel"), making it clear that the spelling is not an inadvertent error. The conditions of Article 32.5.1 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN 1999, the Code hereafter) are thus clearly not met. There is no use of the umlaut either anywhere in the text or in any of the spelling of the specific epithet used by Temminck. In conclusion, neither the addition of "e" after "u" nor the addition of a second "l" are justified by the Code, and these changes are unjustified emendations (see also Peterson 2002).
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Rüppell's Warbler

mb1848 said:
What is Peterson 2002?
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AERC TAC 2012 mistakenly cites Peterson 2002, but the relevant reference is actually:
Sylvia ruppeli Nomenclature Spelling

  • Originally spelled "Sylvia ruppeli" (previously I had this wrongly spelled myself as "ruppelli", but the Richmond Index card makes it clear it has only one "l" -2008.06.28) by Temminck, according to the Richmond Index, and confirmed by Normand David and Edward C. Dickinson, who examined the original description (in litt. 2006.05.10)
  • Often, in fact usually, spelled "rueppelli", based understandably on the fact that it is named after Rüppell, who was German and spelled his name with an "ü". Spelling the specific epithet rueppelli would be correct if Temminck had rendered it rüppelli (which he clearly did NOT).
2006.05.11; 2008.06.28
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mb1848 said:
OD:
http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/112979#page/304/mode/1up
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Richard Klim said:
... according to the Richmond Index, and confirmed by Normand David and Edward C. Dickinson, who examined the original description (in litt. 2006.05.10)
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Amazing the difference BHL has made in just a couple of years – what used to be a several-month expedition or several-person collaboration to find a library with an original copy, has become a 3-minute look-up from the desk. Probably the biggest change to nomenclature work there's been since the ICZN was set up. :t:
 
British Birds

Riddington 2016. Editorial. Brit Birds 109(4): 191.
...since the previous issue of BB went to the printer, the BOURC has announced two additions to the British List,... The members of both national assessment bodies – BOURC and BBRC – deserve great credit for carefully ploughing through an enormous amount of work to get to this point. In contrast, the decision by the British Ornithologists' Union to abandon its Taxonomic Sub-committee, announced at the end of last year, seems to be curious at best – and anything but measured and careful. There are plenty of birders asking whether the BOU is still the right organisation to be administering the British List – and whether the people at the top even care that much about it.
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Does anyone know anything more about when BOU intend to adopt a new taxonomy? At present, if I understand correctly, they're still using the BOU taxonomy but have no means of updating it.

Reading back through this thread, I noticed Richard Klim's comment that BirdLife will be updating their taxonomy of passerines later this year. I wondered if that might be part of the reason for the pause between BOU stopping TSC and them adopting a new taxonomy. If a national organisation was intending to adopt BirdLife, it would be worth waiting until after the change, so as to have one big change in the list rather than two. But of course there are many other reasons why one might delay. I should emphasise that my inside knowledge of this question is exactly zero.
 
Sequels...

From the BOU News (already oldish, actually -- last August -- but has not been relayed here):
18 August 2016
Adoption of a global taxonomy

The Council of the British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) recognises the value of the global harmonisation of avian taxonomy. Following unsuccessful attempts to seek an agreed European taxonomy it was announced in November 2015 that the BOU would disband its own Taxonomic Sub-committee and review the available global taxonomies with a view to adopt one system for all BOU activities, including the British List (for more information see http://www.bou.org.uk/british-list/taxonomy).

Notably, moving towards a single international harmonised taxonomy is one of the declared aims of the International Ornithologists’ Union (IOU), with a round table meeting being convened at 27th International Ornithological Congress in Vancouver, Canada in August 2018. However, BOU recognises that it may be many years before this is achieved and would like to harmonise its own taxonomy with a global list more rapidly, rather than waiting for a final global consensus to emerge.

A working group from BOU Council and the BOU Records Committee (BOURC) met in August 2016 to determine the criteria to be considered and the process for selecting which global taxonomy to adopt. Factors to be considered will include the regularity of updates to the taxonomy, and the extent to which the process for decision making is open and transparent, as well as being scientifically valid and consistent. The major current global taxonomies (Bird-Life International/HBW, Clements, IOC, Howard and Moore) will be contacted shortly and invited to provide information relating to these criteria. All of this information will be considered at a joint meeting of BOU Council and BOURC, following which a decision will be made regarding which global taxonomic system will be followed by BOU.
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Martin Collinson in BB (from a recent tweet by Marcus Lawson -- assuming (?) this is not fake):
'It has become apparent during my 14-year association that the challenges to the work of BOURC arise from within BOU itself. BOU is not a 'birders' organisation -- it is governed and administered by people who have lots of other priorities that do not necessarily include the British List. Decisions by BOU Council in the last ten years have undermined BOURC and betrayed a lack of understanding about the requirements and responsibilities associated with BOU's long custodianship of the British List, if the British List has become a peripheral, legacy activity from BOU, what can be done? Bringing BOURC's skill sets into BB 'fold' to form a joint committee that maintains rigorous standards in a single tier within an organisation, British Birds, for which the British List is a top priority, might be a price worth paying.'
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