88 research outputs found
Measuring and explaining disagreement in bird taxonomy
No full textSpecies lists play an important role in biology and practical domains like conservation, legislation, biosecurity and trade regulation. However, their effective use by non-specialist scientific and societal users is sometimes hindered by disagreements between competing lists. While it is wellknown that such disagreements exist, it remains unclear how prevalent they are, what their nature is, and what causes them. In this study, we argue that these questions should be investigated using methods based on taxon concept rather than methods based on Linnaean names, and use such a concept-based method to quantify disagreement about bird classification and investigate its relation to research effort. We found that there was disagreement about 38% of all groups of birds recognized as a species, more than three times as much as indicated by previous measures. Disagreement about the delimitation of bird groups was the most common kind of conflict, outnumbering disagreement about nomenclature and disagreement about rank. While high levels of conflict about rank were associated with lower levels of research effort, this was not the case for conflict about the delimitation of bird groups. This suggests that taxonomic disagreement cannot be resolved simply by increasing research effort.The work of Stijn Conix and Charles Pence for this paper was funded by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique-FNRS m1der grant no. T.0177.21. Vincent Cuypers's work for this atticle was fimded by the Research Council Flanders (FWO) under grant no. G0D5720N. We want to thank Marlies Monnens, Les Clnistidis, Andreas De Block, Thomas Reydon, Max Bautista Perpinya, Sturut Butcha1t, Rob Ma1tin, Tom Altois and Lin Gen for helpful comments on various pruts of this paper. Ce1tain data included herein are de1ived from Clmivate Web of Science
A plea for preregistration in taxonomy
No full textThere are notoriously many different definitions of species and methods of species delimitation, forcing taxonomists to make a long range of methodological decisions in species delimitation. Because of this, there are sometimes multiple viable competing methodological paths, which could lead to different ranking (or even grouping) decisions. As a result, it is often unclear what it means for a group to be recognized as a species, the groups recognized as species are not always comparable, and some have even called ranking decisions ‘subjective’. To mitigate the problems this causes for users of taxonomy and taxonomists, we propose that taxonomists across the tree of life should start preregistering their research design and criteria for species delimitation in advance of their research. We argue that even if it were to require additional effort, preregistering taxonomic research would strongly benefit taxonomy in the long term, by increasing the transparency and usability of taxonomic outcomes and by reducing the need for ad hoc methodological decisions
A Single Authoritative List of the World's Species: background and roadmap
No full textEven though (some) species lists are in a state of disorder, they are extensively used by scientists, policymakers and international organizations. This chapter considers two ways of alleviating the problems that taxonomic disorder causes for these users of taxonomy: a 'guided approach' to taxonomic knowledge, and a 'facilitating approach' to taxonomic knowledge. On the guided approach, specialists construct a single authoritative list that all users can use; on the facilitating approach, users have to navigate the complexity of taxonomic knowledge themselves, but have a layer of meta-data to help them do this. We argue that currently the facilitating approach is in place but does not (yet) function optimally. We show that pursuing the guided approach to complement the current facilitating approach can alleviate the limitations of the latter, and suggest how this can be done
Towards a global list of accepted species III. Independence and stakeholder inclusion
No full textsponsorship: This paper is one of a series published by the IUBS Working Group on the Governance of Taxonomic Lists. We are grateful for funding and support from the International Union of Biological Sciences and its Executive Officer Nathalie Fomproix, and administration of the grant by Roanne Ramsey (Charles Darwin University). Stijn Conix gratefully acknowledges funding from the Research Council Flanders (FWO; Grant 3H200026). (International Union of Biological Sciences, Charles Darwin University, Research Council Flanders (FWO)|3H200026)status: Publishe
Values, regulation, and species delimitation
No full textGarnett and Christidis (2017) [hereafter GC] recently proposed that the International Union of the Biological Sciences should centrally regulate the taxonomy of complex organisms. Their proposal was met with much criticism (e.g. Hołyński 2017; Thomson et al., 2018), and perhaps most extensively from Raposo et al. (2017) in this journal. The main target of this criticism was GC's call to, first, "restrict the freedom of taxonomic action", and, second, to let social, political and conservation values weigh in on species classification. Some commentators even went as far as to draw a comparison with the infamous Lysenko-case of state-controlled and heavily restricted science (Raposo et al. 2017, 181; Hołyński 2017, 12). This comment will argue, without thereby endorsing GC's position, that these two aspects of their views need not be as threatening as this comparison suggests, and indeed are very reasonable.sponsorship: I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council [AH/14/pool/5]. (Arts and Humanities Research Council|AH/14/pool/5)status: Publishe
Integrative Taxonomy and the Operationalization of Evolutionary Independence
No full textThere is growing agreement among taxonomists that species are independently evolving lineages. The central notion of this conception, evolutionary independence, is commonly operationalized by taxonomists in multiple, diverging ways. This leads to a problem of operationalization-dependency in species classification, as species delimitation is not only dependent on the properties of the investigated groups, but also on how taxonomists choose to operationalize evolutionary independence. The question then is how the operationalization-dependency of species delimitation is compatible with its objectivity and reliability. In response to this problem, various taxonomists have proposed to integrate multiple operationalizations of evolutionary independence for delimiting species. This paper first distinguishes between a standard and a sophisticated integrative approach to taxonomy, and argues that it is unclear how either of these can support the reliability and objectivity of species delimitation. It then draws a parallel between the measurement of physical quantities and species delimitation to argue that species delimitation can be considered objective and reliable if we understand the sophisticated integrative approach as assessing the coherence between the idealized models of multiple operationalizations of evolutionary independence
Towards a global list of accepted species IV: Overcoming fragmentation in the governance of taxonomic lists
No full textsponsorship: This paper is one of a series published by the IUBS Working Group on the Governance of Taxonomic Lists. We are grateful for funding and support from the International Union of Biological Sciences and its Executive Officer Nathalie Fomproix, and administration of the grant by Roanne Ramsey (Charles Darwin University). Stijn Conix gratefully acknowledges funding from the Research Council Flanders (FWO Grant 3H200026). (International Union of Biological Sciences and its Executive Officer Nathalie Fomproix, Research Council Flanders (FWO)|3H200026, Charles Darwin University)status: Publishe
Ethics of research funding: A survey (PILOT)
No full textThere has been a surge of interest for research integrity over the last decade, and there is now a range of empirical studies that document the prevalence of serious misconduct as well as questionable research practices (Fanelli 2009, Gopalakrishna et al. 2021). While these studies typically cover research design, data collection and publication practices, funding and grant-reviewing practices have remained largely neglected. This is unfortunate, as these constitute an important part of researchers' activities and involve a large part of the academic community both in the role of reviewers and applicants. In addition, there is some tentative evidence that both applicants and reviewers do not always act in line with commonly accepted codes of conduct ( Anderson et al. 2007; Bouter et al. 2016; see also Conix, De Block, and Vaesen 2021). We plan to conduct an online survey to assess the prevalence of unethical practices related to research funding and some of their drivers. Our target population are applicants, reviewers and panelists, preferably contacted through funders with the double aim of 1) contacting the right people through a relevant organisation and 2) collecting anonymous responses.
Before running the main study, we will run a pilot. This is the registration for the pilot
Towards a global list of accepted species II. Consequences of inadequate taxonomic list governance
No full textsponsorship: This paper is one of a series published by the IUBS Working Group on the Governance of Taxonomic Lists. We are grateful for the funding and support from the International Union of Biological Sciences and its Executive Officer Nathalie Fomproix, and the administration of the grant by Roanne Ramsey (Charles Darwin University). This paper has benefited greatly from discussions with all members of the Working Group, including those not listed as co-authors. S. Nikolaeva is supported by the Kazan Federal University Strategic Academic Leadership Program. Stijn Conix gratefully acknowledges the funding from the Research Council Flanders (FWO; Grant 3H200026). (International Union of Biological Sciences, Charles Darwin University, Kazan Federal University Strategic Academic Leadership Program, Research Council Flanders (FWO)|3H200026)status: Publishe
In defence of taxonomic governance
No full text© 2019, Gesellschaft für Biologische Systematik. It is well known that taxonomists rely on many different methods and criteria for species delimitation, leading to different kinds of groups being recognised as species. While this state of relative disorder is widely acknowledged, there is no similar agreement about how it should be resolved. This paper considers the view that the disorder in species classification should be resolved by a system of taxonomic governance. I argue that such a system of governance is best seen as a combination of standardisation, unification and regulation, each of which can be implemented in different forms. I investigate the forms that these three components should take for taxonomic governance by looking into two successfully governed classification systems, namely, virus classification and enzyme classification. The last part of the paper then defends the governance view against five objections.sponsorship: Work on this paper was supported by the KU Leuven Onderzoeksraad, grant 3H160214. (KU Leuven Onderzoeksraad|3H160214)status: Publishe
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