IOC combines forces w/ NACC, SACC, Cornell, and more to produce "global checklist" (2 Viewers)

[Andy Adcock]

Referring yours and Jan's I don't think it's either a difference in method or a view among shades of grey creating differences between lists. Maybe for N America or Europe where very few differences exist anyway, and we can argue all day about Crossbills, Larus gulls or Stonechats and not a right lot else. But not for the tropics. Many of the present committees are simply and steadfastly refusing to consider BirdLife or IOC splits on some "point of principle". There is no firm decision "not to split" cases like those mentioned (whilst at the same time applying a consistent method to "split hairs" with much more similar to one another or genetically closer splits, like Herring Gulls or Common/Mew Gulls). There is no consistency, there is no method or grand scheme; it is laziness, the over-whelming nature of tropical faunas or bloody-mindedness / grandstanding (or all of them) behind much of the differences between lists. IOC, Clements and SACC/NACC simply want to ignore what BirdLife have done on principle - and are not even considering their proposals. In some cases, these have support in the periodical literature but because BirdLife was the original messenger, they don't get even considered. Hopefully this new project can involve banging some heads together and sorting some of these things out!

I'm curious as to the the structure of personel at any of the lists, why would anyone refuse to accept Birdlife findings if they're done through bona fide research and sufficiently well scrutinised and adjudicated work? Are there some personality issues in play?

I always assumed that researchers were mainly based within academic organisations? If so, what is to stop any researcher, offering their findings to the IOC rather than Birdlife or vice versa for adjudication, is there some financial incentive, perhaps funding?

Apologies for my naivety but I can't be the only layman who'se puzzled by the mechanics of all this.

 

[James Eaton]

I'm curious as to the the structure of personel at any of the lists, why would anyone refuse to accept Birdlife findings if they're done through bona fide research and sufficiently well scrutinised and adjudicated work? Are there some personality issues in play?

I always assumed that researchers were mainly based within academic organisations? If so, what is to stop any researcher, offering their findings to the IOC rather than Birdlife or vice versa for adjudication, is there some financial incentive, perhaps funding?

Apologies for my naivety but I can't be the only layman who'se puzzled by the mechanics of all this.

Vast majority of the IOC taxonomic decisions are based on peer-reviewed, published work - IOC for example rarely follows 'field guide splits' as that's not based on peer-review work (for example, a manuscript published in Forktail has gone through a peer-review, both by at least two reviewers selected by the editorial team, and the editor), it's usually a fairly rigorous, labour-intensive process that can take 6-24 months from writing to publication.
I have noted, however there have been a few taxonomic decisions based purely from field guides that IOC have taken on-board recently.

The BirdLife taxonomy is based on research by their team of taxonomists, without external examination, ie, the vast majority of their decisions have not been through a peer-reviewed process. Since its checklist was first published however, a number of papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals - most of this of which ave then been taken up by IOC, which is great to see (for example, Red-bellied Pitta complex, Crested Argus etc). I have no doubt that most of the taxonomic decisions taken on by BirdLife would be eventually accepted by other checklists, but for them all to be peer-reviewed would take years. However, some decisions have been reversed based on peer-reviewed work, a good case in point is Black-winged Myna, see here: The conservation value of admixed phenotypes in a critically endangered species complex - Scientific Reports

A paper of interest, Andy, where the BirdLife system has been questions: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ay-overlook-substantial-cryptic-diversity.pdf

James

 

[Jacana]

Vast majority of the IOC taxonomic decisions are based on peer-reviewed, published work - IOC for example rarely follows 'field guide splits' as that's not based on peer-review work (for example, a manuscript published in Forktail has gone through a peer-review, both by at least two reviewers selected by the editorial team, and the editor), it's usually a fairly rigorous, labour-intensive process that can take 6-24 months from writing to publication.
I have noted, however there have been a few taxonomic decisions based purely from field guides that IOC have taken on-board recently.

The BirdLife taxonomy is based on research by their team of taxonomists, without external examination, ie, the vast majority of their decisions have not been through a peer-reviewed process. Since its checklist was first published however, a number of papers have appeared in peer-reviewed journals - most of this of which ave then been taken up by IOC, which is great to see (for example, Red-bellied Pitta complex, Crested Argus etc). I have no doubt that most of the taxonomic decisions taken on by BirdLife would be eventually accepted by other checklists, but for them all to be peer-reviewed would take years. However, some decisions have been reversed based on peer-reviewed work, a good case in point is Black-winged Myna, see here: The conservation value of admixed phenotypes in a critically endangered species complex - Scientific Reports

A paper of interest, Andy, where the BirdLife system has been questions: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ay-overlook-substantial-cryptic-diversity.pdf

James

This is true, although they regularly use non-peer-reviewed work for subspecies updates.

 

[Mysticete]

June 2022 update!

If I am reading this correctly, we might see some of these taxonomic updates implemented in the next Ebird/Clements update. This may also already be happening with IOC, especially as they have mentioned completing birds of prey and owls.

Working Group Avian Checklists | International Ornithologists' Union

Working Group Avian Checklists Update (January 2024) Progress on the Checklist Work is continuing on the Checklist and it expected that the final draft will be completed by late 2024. There will be a period of cross-checking before it is made public in early 2025. As part of the release the...

www.internationalornithology.org

 

[Mysticete]

You can kind of get a sense of the decisions that have been made by checking through IOC lists last few updates. For instance the birds of prey and owls were significantly modified, despite not many new papers, in this last update, and the last update did something similar for pigeons, another completed group by the committee. By the end of the process their may be little need to convert over your lifelist to the new checklist if you follow IOC like I do.

Out of curiosity (and I am bored this Sunday), here is how the checklist in raw numbers (all we have available) compares to the other checklists. The current WGAC draft as of June has 11063 species, which is the base IOC checklist + the taxonomic changes the WGAC has made. This is with ~50% of the taxonomy looked over. This is in comparison to 11088 as of IOC 12.1 and 10, 824 in Clements as of 2021 and 11,162 in the Birdlife checklist as of version 6. Not a completely fair comparison, as the number for IOC almost certainly reflects some WGAC changes that the other checklists haven't made yet, so it's closer to the "final" number. This could change radically as there are some major groups still to look over or which probably haven't been incorporated yet, but at least as of now it backs up my supposition that the new checklist would probably be intermediate in the degree that splits are recognized between IOC and Clements. Effectively lumps have cancelled out splits so far for all but Clements. So if you are Clements, congrats as you probably are going to get some new birds, especially if you have a large list already. If you use IOC, well expect your list to maybe decrease.

 

[Kirk Roth]

June 2022 update!

If I am reading this correctly, we might see some of these taxonomic updates implemented in the next Ebird/Clements update. This may also already be happening with IOC, especially as they have mentioned completing birds of prey and owls.

Working Group Avian Checklists | International Ornithologists' Union

Working Group Avian Checklists Update (January 2024) Progress on the Checklist Work is continuing on the Checklist and it expected that the final draft will be completed by late 2024. There will be a period of cross-checking before it is made public in early 2025. As part of the release the...

www.internationalornithology.org

If the owls are "complete," I'm surprised that there wasn't a proposal to the NACC for a split of the Northern/Mountain Pygmy Owls.

The Working Group website lists Parulidae as "In Process of Implementation" so it makes me wonder similarly if NACC will be revisiting "Yellow-rumped" and American Yellow Warblers next year.

 

[Mysticete]

If the owls are "complete," I'm surprised that there wasn't a proposal to the NACC for a split of the Northern/Mountain Pygmy Owls.

The Working Group website lists Parulidae as "In Process of Implementation" so it makes me wonder similarly if NACC will be revisiting "Yellow-rumped" and American Yellow Warblers next year.

Good Question. It's possible that WGAC is perhaps only creating proposals for NACC/SACC on proposals that have passed or in which they require a lot of feedback from. So if the owl split is rejected, then maybe they didn't bother to send to a external committee like NACC. Although, on that front I would have expected IOC to have at least a proposed lump of these taxa. Unless IOC wants to do all North American relevant changes at once, when this years NACC update is posted?

Or its possible that the NACC proposals are "running behind", and these were not able to make it to this round despite WGAC considering them. It is kind of clear, given the speed at which NACC works in compiling and releasing proposal packets, that the Working Group probably can't just wait around on NACC to make a decision if they want to keep to a specific timeline. It seems likely that given all the involvement of different folks, that the checklist perhaps doesn't want to be a rubber stamp for NACC, and clear every single relevant decision through SACC.

Not sure we will get another Yellow-rumped Warbler or Savannah Sparrow proposal to NACC. Both have had two proposals in the last...decade or two? that failed by narrow margins, and at this point I think the Yellow-rumped Warbler split will go through only when a sufficient turnover in committee membership happens, not with new scientific evidence.

Anyway, while the June update revealed a lot of information on how the Working Group...works, there is a lot of stuff we don't know about the process. If anyone has that info, feel free to post in this thread

 

[jts1882]

Is the draft list available anywhere? They refer to v1 and say v2 will include all the families. I looked on GitHub and couldn't find it, so I assume its private, They also mention it was integrated with Avibase, but I can find nothing there.

On the numbers, there seem a net 15 lumps compared to the IOC at the half-way mark. It will be interesting to see how many new species appear in the Clements list (August?) as they have about 100 fewer now. The NACC burst of proposals might be decided in time for Clements.

 

[Mysticete]

Is the draft list available anywhere? They refer to v1 and say v2 will include all the families. I looked on GitHub and couldn't find it, so I assume its private, They also mention it was integrated with Avibase, but I can find nothing there.

On the numbers, there seem a net 15 lumps compared to the IOC at the half-way mark. It will be interesting to see how many new species appear in the Clements list (August?) as they have about 100 fewer now. The NACC burst of proposals might be decided in time for Clements.

They started off with, IIRC, the IOC list as the baseline. There is not yet as far as I know any sort of working draft list at this point that incorporates there revisions since then. Which probably makes sense as it would be a pain to keep current and at some level all decisions made so far could end up getting reversed over the next year, as new evidence or arguments are made, new taxonomic changes are suggested by papers which haven't been published yet, and as they read the opinions produced from the SACC/NACC proposals.

I don't think they are at all done with NACC/SACC proposals. In fact we have gotten a 3 new SACC proposals that clearly relate to the working group's efforts. Next years update (and maybe the year after) will probably see more NACC proposals related to the working group.

Probably worth also pointing out, while there are a few specious families they have completed such as Columbidae and Accipitridae, a large chunk of the families in the finished column are either monospecific or low diversity groups. Laridae, Procellariformes, Anatidae and some other major groups with lots of points of contention have yet to be started.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Good Question. It's possible that WGAC is perhaps only creating proposals for NACC/SACC on proposals that have passed or in which they require a lot of feedback from. So if the owl split is rejected, then maybe they didn't bother to send to a external committee like NACC. Although, on that front I would have expected IOC to have at least a proposed lump of these taxa. Unless IOC wants to do all North American relevant changes at once, when this years NACC update is posted?

Or its possible that the NACC proposals are "running behind", and these were not able to make it to this round despite WGAC considering them. It is kind of clear, given the speed at which NACC works in compiling and releasing proposal packets, that the Working Group probably can't just wait around on NACC to make a decision if they want to keep to a specific timeline. It seems likely that given all the involvement of different folks, that the checklist perhaps doesn't want to be a rubber stamp for NACC, and clear every single relevant decision through SACC.

Not sure we will get another Yellow-rumped Warbler or Savannah Sparrow proposal to NACC. Both have had two proposals in the last...decade or two? that failed by narrow margins, and at this point I think the Yellow-rumped Warbler split will go through only when a sufficient turnover in committee membership happens, not with new scientific evidence.

Anyway, while the June update revealed a lot of information on how the Working Group...works, there is a lot of stuff we don't know about the process. If anyone has that info, feel free to post in this thread

I'll be very surprised if the IOC just lumps the pygmy owls - if I recall the evidence including vocal data were pretty convincing and this seems difficult to dial back (especially given the general acceptance by everyone except NACC as far as I can tell).

With the number of proposals with some statement or another that "there really isn't any new evidence," I don't see the past proposals being a barrier to new ones, given the new Working Group effort and the acknowledgements (e.g. on this forum) of inconsistencies in the NACC's decisions. Or if these are a barrier, I don't see why NACC and SACC are reviewing so many of these "consistency proposals" - not all of them strike me as very novel. Plus with the warbler it seems like any minor study comparing Audubon's and Myrtle could reopen the mountain of evidence involving genetics, vocalization, migration pattern, diet, and so on - as you mention these votes were close already and this is probably close to a tipping point.

Did you mean to say Fox Sparrow instead of Savannah? Currently the NACC and IOC are in accordance on Savannah Sparrow taxonomy, so for them I agree it may be a longer time. IOC has a four-way split of the Fox Sparrow and has colorfully stated that "the burden of proof is on lumpers" or something to that effect. Personally, I think the evidence is best for three species, but regardless I think this is an interesting case for re-visitation for either committee.

Of your two scenarios, the former makes more sense to me than the latter. There just aren't that many differences between the two taxonomies and it seems like the material for all of these would not be that difficult to assemble (reassemble?) into proposals. Maybe the owl is sliding in at the last moment and we'll see it in the fall - but that would mean that "alignment" would not be "complete" until July of next year.

A third option is that maybe alignment between the checklists isn't as important to the committees as we thought. It as agreed that there is a lot more going on here than we can know.

 

[Mysticete]

I'll be very surprised if the IOC just lumps the pygmy owls - if I recall the evidence including vocal data were pretty convincing and this seems difficult to dial back (especially given the general acceptance by everyone except NACC as far as I can tell).

With the number of proposals with some statement or another that "there really isn't any new evidence," I don't see the past proposals being a barrier to new ones, given the new Working Group effort and the acknowledgements (e.g. on this forum) of inconsistencies in the NACC's decisions. Or if these are a barrier, I don't see why NACC and SACC are reviewing so many of these "consistency proposals" - not all of them strike me as very novel. Plus with the warbler it seems like any minor study comparing Audubon's and Myrtle could reopen the mountain of evidence involving genetics, vocalization, migration pattern, diet, and so on - as you mention these votes were close already and this is probably close to a tipping point.

Did you mean to say Fox Sparrow instead of Savannah? Currently the NACC and IOC are in accordance on Savannah Sparrow taxonomy, so for them I agree it may be a longer time. IOC has a four-way split of the Fox Sparrow and has colorfully stated that "the burden of proof is on lumpers" or something to that effect. Personally, I think the evidence is best for three species, but regardless I think this is an interesting case for re-visitation for either committee.

Of your two scenarios, the former makes more sense to me than the latter. There just aren't that many differences between the two taxonomies and it seems like the material for all of these would not be that difficult to assemble (reassemble?) into proposals. Maybe the owl is sliding in at the last moment and we'll see it in the fall - but that would mean that "alignment" would not be "complete" until July of next year.

A third option is that maybe alignment between the checklists isn't as important to the committees as we thought. It as agreed that there is a lot more going on here than we can know.

Nope...I meant Savannah. They are attempting to reconcile not only IOC and Clements, but also HBW/Birdlife. The latter splits Savannah Sparrow so presumably they would need to consider this. IIRC, while the Savannah Sparrow split failed, it was another close vote, with 7v voting to split and 3 voting no. I do think we will see a NACC proposal for Fox Sparrows, as I don't think there has been one for something like 20 or so years (although I don't think much new evidence is out there). I also expect a proposal on Yellow Warbler, although that is one that is so complex I could see that getting relumped.

My biggest question at the moment is...if NACC and Clements/Ebird are going to part ways, what does the ABA do? At the moment, I think the only differences between Clements and NACC within the ABA area is how many species of swamphen should be recognized and some differences in how they treat rare vagrants. But if ebird recognizes splits of wide-ranging and common ABA birds like Fox Sparrows and Yellow-rumped Warblers, it probably doesn't make sense to continue following them, as it will cause a great deal of confusion.

 

[pbjosh]

I think the only differences between Clements and NACC within the ABA area is how many species of swamphen should be recognized and some differences in how they treat rare vagrants.

Mexican Duck comes to mind, or has NACC/AOU split it as well now?

If eBird and AOU/ABA diverge I can only imagine that it will undermine AOU/NACC a touch. It’s only speculation that they might diverge further but there are a LOT of birders out there who don’t know what a NACC is or what ABA stands for but that have found eBird. Particularly out of the USA.

 

[raymie]

Mexican Duck comes to mind, or has NACC/AOU split it as well now?

If eBird and AOU/ABA diverge I can only imagine that it will undermine AOU/NACC a touch. It’s only speculation that they might diverge further but there are a LOT of birders out there who don’t know what a NACC is or what ABA stands for but that have found eBird. Particularly out of the USA.

NACC/AOU splits Mexican Duck as of a few years ago.

 

[Mysticete]

NACC/AOU splits Mexican Duck as of a few years ago.

Which kind of felt like was in part pressure put on them by ebird/Clements...

 

[MJB]

Or its possible that the NACC proposals are "running behind", and these were not able to make it to this round despite WGAC considering them. It is kind of clear, given the speed at which NACC works in compiling and releasing proposal packets, that the Working Group probably can't just wait around on NACC to make a decision if they want to keep to a specific timeline. It seems likely that given all the involvement of different folks, that the checklist perhaps doesn't want to be a rubber stamp for NACC, and clear every single relevant decision through SACC.

I'm a little concerned that the "running behind" effect is not a one-off circumstance. I presume that all the agencies involved are working from the same snapshot date when all the lists were 'frozen', making it a stable platform from which all the historical discrepancies need to be resolved. Is it fair to suggest that as the rationalisation of the lists progresses, the number of 'difficult' cases, the ones that at the start were thrown in the long grass, becomes the majority of those that remain? The implication is that the "running behind" effect will increase in frequency.

Now, fast-forward to the point where the initial rationalisation process essentially is complete and what faces the agencies is the list of those species since the lists were 'frozen' where one agency or another has proposed a lump or a split. I would hazard that some have already been dealt with for one reason or another, but for new cases, are we faced now with the problem of the speed with which the 'amalgamated' list progresses? When multiple agencies require agreement, it's my experience that the speed of agreement between them is always dependent on the slowest agency, which almost inevitably is always the same one.
MJB

 

[Mysticete]

I'm a little concerned that the "running behind" effect is not a one-off circumstance. I presume that all the agencies involved are working from the same snapshot date when all the lists were 'frozen', making it a stable platform from which all the historical discrepancies need to be resolved. Is it fair to suggest that as the rationalisation of the lists progresses, the number of 'difficult' cases, the ones that at the start were thrown in the long grass, becomes the majority of those that remain? The implication is that the "running behind" effect will increase in frequency.

Now, fast-forward to the point where the initial rationalisation process essentially is complete and what faces the agencies is the list of those species since the lists were 'frozen' where one agency or another has proposed a lump or a split. I would hazard that some have already been dealt with for one reason or another, but for new cases, are we faced now with the problem of the speed with which the 'amalgamated' list progresses? When multiple agencies require agreement, it's my experience that the speed of agreement between them is always dependent on the slowest agency, which almost inevitably is always the same one.
MJB

I am not sure I am understanding this completely, but while there are members of the WGAC who are involved with SACC or NACC, my impression is that WGAC have there own voting system in place. They are not "waiting" for something to pass from either committee, although I am sure they will weigh the results during the final pass once they have gone through everything. Evidence from this can be seen in the NACC Spruce Grouse proposal, where the person submitting the proposal flat out states that the Franklin's/Taiga split was already passed by WGAC. The NACC and SACC proposals are as much about those lists reconciling with WGAC as it is the other way around.

And there will almost have to be a final pass anyway. IOC is still actively splitting and lumping taxa and making other taxonomic adjustments as new papers are published. So presumably at the every end they will need to evaluate those changes, as well as any unrelated NACC/SACC splits/lumps, like the upcoming Mexican Desert Grassland White-tailed Meadowlark split

 

[Mysticete]

Also, it occurred to me that the baseline for IOC I was using for my comparisons was as of the last update. The baseline probably represents an earlier draft however, unless they are actively adding "extra stuff" to to the list with each update. Going with January 2021, which is close to the probable start, the IOC baseline would have been 10,964 (both extant and extinct). Compared to the current draft with revisions of the WGAC, of 11,063, that would be a increase of 99 species (of which 33 are probable splits incorporated into post January 2021 updates), but again, not sure how many of these would be completely new versus already factored into the post January 2021 updates, which of course lists 11088. If this is more accurate, than there would be a net gain in birds, which would suggest more HBW splits have been accepted than my earlier calculus suggests.

 

[Paul Clapham]

Also, it occurred to me that the baseline for IOC I was using for my comparisons was as of the last update. The baseline probably represents an earlier draft however, unless they are actively adding "extra stuff" to to the list with each update. Going with January 2021, which is close to the probable start, the IOC baseline would have been 10,964 (both extant and extinct). Compared to the current draft with revisions of the WGAC, of 11,063, that would be a increase of 99 species (of which 33 are probable splits incorporated into post January 2021 updates), but again, not sure how many of these would be completely new versus already factored into the post January 2021 updates, which of course lists 11088. If this is more accurate, than there would be a net gain in birds, which would suggest more HBW splits have been accepted than my earlier calculus suggests.

The current count for IOC, including new species and approved lumps and splits, is 11090 according to my data.

 

[Mysticete]

I haven't seen this commented on anywhere, but I found this little sidenote in the most recent 2022 ABA checklist update to be of interest, especially in regard the current "war of checklists"

"This year we will begin to note on the ABA Checklist when there is a discrepancy in English and scientific names between those of the AOS (Chesser et al. 2022) and those of eBird/Clements et al. (2021, including revisions in 2022). This change will allow ABA members who keep lists via eBird to know what species on the ABA Checklist is being referred to. For example, we will now list “Gray-headed [Purple] Swamphen Porphyrio [porphyrio] poliocephalus” in the ABA Checklist to reflect
differences in taxonomic treatment between these two checklists. This is the only species for which both the common and the scientific names currently differ between the two checklists. There will be 14 other discrepancies listed: six for English names and eight for scientific names, the majority of which are minor and involve either exotic or vagrant species."

I point this out because this is the first time I have observed ABA seemingly considering ebird over AOS in how they list a bird. These must be pretty minor...I tried going through the list using Avibase and I think I could only find 3 examples besides the Swamphen: Eurasian Moorhen, Chinese Hwamei, and Amur Stonechat.

Still, one wonders if this is setting more radical changes down the line, if WGAC (and thus ebird) end up coming to different conclusions then AOS on bird taxonomy.

 

[Kirk Roth]

"This year we will begin to note on the ABA Checklist when there is a discrepancy in English and scientific names between those of the AOS (Chesser et al. 2022) and those of eBird/Clements et al. (2021, including revisions in 2022). This change will allow ABA members who keep lists via eBird to know what species on the ABA Checklist is being referred to. For example, we will now list “Gray-headed [Purple] Swamphen Porphyrio [porphyrio] poliocephalus” in the ABA Checklist to reflect
differences in taxonomic treatment between these two checklists. This is the only species for which both the common and the scientific names currently differ between the two checklists. There will be 14 other discrepancies listed: six for English names and eight for scientific names, the majority of which are minor and involve either exotic or vagrant species."

For an organization that ostensibly follows AOS by default, it is interesting that they bracketed the AOS classification rather than Clements...