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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mb1848" data-source="post: 3343482" data-attributes="member: 31036">Thanks Laurent!Mr. Kratter commented on the process on birdbrains.One of the most difficult things when voting on proposals for members of the AOU North American Checklist Committee (NACC) is to balance two competing forces: maintaining stability and keeping up to date. Both are necessary for a check-list to be functional. Stability has many advantages and we are often criticized when we tinker with English names, or when we have reversed decisions in a short amount of time (e.g., "Northern" orioles). Stability has other benefits: the USFWS uses the AOU checklist as the taxonomy for endangered species legislation, and having an unstable taxonomy would create chaos on managing endangered species. Of course, being up-to-date has all sorts of advantages as well, including in these times of splitting, adding to birders lifelists. But whether splitting or lumping, the NACC is trying to get the answer that is correct, in light of our philosophies on species limits, taxonomic sequences, higher level groupings etc. Many times studies only give part of the answer to particular questions. For instance, with the Fox Sparrow, we have known for years that the four types differ in DNA, which corresponds to differences in plumage. Although some argue that that is enough data to split, most members on the NACC feels that it is important to establish that the populations are reproductively isolated to be to considered species. The important studies on what is happening where the the subspecies meet have not been carried out. Until that time, it seems best to leave it as a single species. We have been trying to speed up the process by encouraging ornithologists outside the Committee to submit proposals and we have recently created a student committee , for which advance graduate students in ornithology and taxonomy are creating proposals. Our positions on the Committee are entirely voluntary, and it is up to our colleagues and bosses as to how much time we spend on committee work fits into our job descriptions.By the way, the earlier link was to the current batch of proposals. We have not yet reached decisions on these. There will be two more batches of proposals for this year, and all the decisions will be published in the July Auk. In the meantime, we will update our webpage (<a href="http://www.aou.org/committees/" target="_blank">http://www.aou.org/committees/</a>...) on proposals, voting, and comments from the Committee. I greatly enjoy hearing from you all on your opinions of the Committee and the proposals.Andy KratterGainesville, Florida - See more at: <a href="http://birding.aba.org/mobiledigest/FL01#1057849" target="_blank">http://birding.aba.org/mobiledigest/FL01#1057849</a></blockquote>

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