BZN Volume
62, Part 1, 31 March 2005
Comments
Comments
with the following titles were published on 31 March
2005 in Volume 62, Part 1 of the Bulletin of
Zoological Nomenclature.
Copies
of these Comments can be obtained free of charge from
the Executive Secretary, The International Commission
on Zoological Nomenclature, c/o The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K. (e-mail: iczn@nhm.ac.uk).
‘Published
Works in the electronic age: recommended amendments to
Articles 8 and 9 of the Code’ - comment on general
article by J.D. Harris
(General
Article, see BZN
61: 138-148)
Frank-Thorsten Krell
Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell
Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K. (e-mail: f.krell@nhm.ac.uk)
Peter S. Cranston
Entomology Department, University of California at
Davis, Davis CA 95616, U.S.A. (e-mail: pscranston@ucdavis.edu)
There is much uncertainty
amongst taxonomists as to how to deal with the increasing
number of papers that are pre-published electronically on
the World Wide Web, sometimes many months before the paper
version is available. This uncertainty is unnecessary since
Article 9.8 of the Code explicitly states that web-publications
are to be treated as unpublished for nomenclatural purposes
and there is no recommendation in the Code suggesting the
withholding of new names until they are published formally.
The journal Systematic Entomology (which we edit)
has joined the electronic pre-publication service of its
publisher Blackwell, OnlineEarly (Cranston
& Krell, 2005). However, in recognition of some unease
amongst taxonomists concerning web-publications being unpublished
for nomenclatural purposes, we offer our authors the choice
to withhold their paper from electronic pre-publication.
Indeed, authors of one paper so far have opted for this
delay.
Recently, Taylor & Francis have withdrawn the Journal
of Natural History from their electronic pre-publication
service ('prEview'), because of the same uncertainty (A.
Polaszek, pers. comm.). We consider it disadvantageous for
taxonomic progress and detrimental for the reputation of
both taxonomy and the Commission if an Article of the Code
delays publication of taxonomic results, in times when electronic
pre-publications in other sciences increasingly become a
major source of information.
The uncertainty amongst authors (and publishers) would
end if electronic pre-publications were accepted as published
by the Code, provided there is some strict regulation as
suggested by Jerald Harris in his general article published
in the Bulletin. Thus we support the validation
of web-based documents only if registered with a DOI number
(Digital Object Identifier, Paskin, 2004; http://doi.org)
and followed by an identical paper publication. The World
Wide Web has proved to be a very volatile archive (Dellavalle
et al., 2003; Whitfield, 2004), and electronic archiving
projects already suffer from ever-changing standards and
formats of electronic documents (Malvern, 2004). Harris’s
proposal addresses these provisions and is a very sensible
and timely step forward for nomenclature.
References
Cranston, P.S. & Krell, F.-T. 2005. Editorial. Systematic
Entomology, 30: 1-2.
Dellavalle, R.P., Hester, E.J., Heilig, L.F., Drake,
A.L., Kuntzman, J.W., Graber, M. & Schilling, L.M. 2003.
Going, going, gone: Lost internet references. Science, 302:
787-788.
Malvern, J. 2004. Never mind the book, can
I look at the e-mail? The Times, 2.Oct.2004:
9.
Paskin, N. 2004. The DOI® Handbook. Edition
4.0.0. Oxford, International DOI Foundation. http://www.doi.org/handbook_2000/
DOIHandbook-v4.pdf
Whitfield, J. 2004. Web links leave abstracts
going nowhere. Nature, 428: 592.
Comment
on the neotypification of protists, especially ciliates
(Protozoa, Ciliophora)
(General
Article, see BZN
59, 165-169; 60: 48-49, 143, 216-217; 61:
39-40)
Colin R. Curds, Gianfranco
Novarino, Alan Warren and David M. Roberts*
Department of Zoology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell
Road, London SW7 5BD, U.K.
* author for correspondence
The usefulness of
neotypes in modern protistan systematics is not in dispute
and we also applaud the principle of redescribing existing
taxa, rather than creating new names that so often add to
nomenclatural confusion. Nonetheless, we argue that Foissner’s
proposal is rather more liberal than is desirable.
First, although protistologists often talk about the
ciliates and other protists as being ubiquitous (Finlay,
2002), there remains reasonable doubt that it is really and
universally so. The crux of the argument depends on how the
species are defined. Many morphospecies are demonstrably
cosmopolitan, but there are several examples of species not
having yet been found outside a particular geographical region.
Certain species of the ciliate Blepharisma (B.
japonicum, B. stoltei and B. brevifiliformis)
have never been found in the Americas (Giese, 1973). The
sibling species of Tetrahymena are biochemically,
and therefore genetically, distinct despite being extraordinarily
difficult to distinguish morphologically (Gates &
Berger, 1976). Restricted geographical distributions have
also been assigned to several other taxa of ciliates and
testate amoebae (Foissner, 1999, 2003; Foissner & Song,
2002; Foissner et al., 2002).
The purpose of neotypification is to fix the nomenclatural
type of a given taxon when no holotype, syntypes, hapantotypes
or lectotype exists. In so doing neotypification inevitably
defines the taxon’s range of morphological variability,
normally by restricting it to a greater or lesser degree.
To permit the designation of a neotype from material originating
in a continent other than that of the original place of collection
might lead to its being challenged at a later stage, on the
grounds that material from nearer to the type locality was
excluded from the newly defined circumscription. This would
not aid the Code’s fundamental requirement of achieving
nomenclatural stability.
The tradition of designating type specimens in protistology
is not strong. Although there exist original collections
of slides containing specimens of taxa described and illustrated
in key taxonomic works, only rarely were these slides formally
designated as types by the authors describing the taxa in
question: a striking example is the Penard collection at
the Natural History Museum, London, (see http://internt.nhm.ac.uk/cgi-bin/perth/protists/)
where individual specimens can be clearly matched with the
diagrams in Penard's major work (Penard, 1922). The Natural
History Museum holdings also contain the bequest material
of many taxonomically active protistologists and could contain
original slides which, although not designated as holotypes,
hapantotypes or syntypes by the authors, represent an obvious
source of material from which lectotypes ought to be selected
and designated. Such instances could make neotypification
superfluous in the best of cases, and damaging in the worst.
It may also be possible to re-examine original material of
a taxon using methods which were not available at the time
of the original description, thus making lectotypification
of original collection material not only possible but also
much more meaningful within a modern taxonomic context (Novarino & Coute,
2000). So far such cases are rare but they may be more widespread
than is commonly believed. In essence, we feel that a thorough
check should be made for existing material before new material
is designated as neotype. The difficulty of locating slides
in private collections is not an acceptable argument for
the creation of a neotype any more than it would be acceptable
to ignore taxonomic work in hard to locate publications.
The protistological practice of regarding original
published illustrations as an acceptable kind of nomenclatural
type should remain, since it has served us well. The practice
of redescribing taxa from the old literature to modern standards
delivers almost all the benefits of nomenclatural stability.
The designation of a neotype brings extra benefit by automatically
restricting the circumscription of the taxon, but it carries
the risk that the specimens may not clearly show those characters
which define the taxon. For instance, some ciliate species
would need a silver stain preparation, others nuclear staining,
etc. Unfortunately, unlike most biological material, protists
cannot be handled easily and that is why little type material
exists. We are concerned by the possibility that hasty neotypification
might bring more confusion than clarity, especially if the
neotypes were not taken from the same geographical region
as the original specimens, which would provide ideal grounds
for later challenge. Much the same purpose could be achieved
by depositing voucher specimens to accompany a taxonomic
redescription, which makes material available for later study
but reduces the risk of confusion by later studies challenging
the neotype status of specimens not taken from the type locality.
We therefore oppose the phylum-wide derogation of Article
75.3.6 of the Code. Like Corliss (2003) we support the flexible
application of the expression ‘as nearly as practicable’ which
can take into account known distribution patterns and potential
mechanisms for dispersal. For instance, species that form
true cysts, such as Colpoda, are more readily dispersed over
large distances by the wind or other mechanisms and are less
likely to be geographically constrained. The issue of isolation
is important: protists in the Namib desert have been isolated
for more than 50 million years (Foissner et al., 2002) and
it would require truly remarkable genetic properties for
these taxa not to have differentiated in this time. Alternatively,
there could be extremely strong morphological constraints
operating on these taxa, or else the taxa have not, in fact,
been isolated at all.
Two issues would advance protistan systematics significantly
more than the widespread designation of neotypes. First,
a journal of record should be designated so that the search
for taxonomic acts can be greatly facilitated. Valuable as Zoological
Record undoubtedly is, its coverage is not universal.
It is our fervent hope that the next edition of the Code
will support a journal of record (Thorne, 2003). Second,
the deposition of molecular sequence data to accompany the
actual specimens and/or illustrations on which newly described
protistan taxa have been based. It is beyond doubt that molecular
tools are reshaping the way we study all aspects of the biology
of protists. There is an urgent need to provide a taxonomically
sound database of molecular sequences to bring the advantages
realised in prokaryotic systematics to the protistan realm.
It is, in our view, highly desirable that this takes place
in parallel with the deposition of voucher specimens for
morphological studies.
References
Corliss, J.O. 2003. Comments on the neotypification
of protists, especially ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora). Bulletin
of Zoological Nomenclature, 60: 48.
Finlay, B.J. 2002. Global dispersal of free-living
microbial eukaryote species. Science, N.Y., 296:
1061-1063.
Foissner, W. 1999. Protist diversity: estimates
of the near-imponderable. Protist, 150:
363-368.
Foissner, W. 2003. Morphology and ontogenesis
of Bromeliophrya brasiliensis gen. n., sp. n., a new ciliate
(Protozoa: Ciliophora) from Brazilian tank bromeliads (Bromeliaceae). Acta
Protozoologica, 42: 55-70.
Foissner, W., Agatha, S. & Berger, H. 2002.
Soil ciliates (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from Namibia (Southwest
Africa), with emphasis on two contrasting environments, the
Etosha Region and the Namib Desert. Denisia, 5:
1-1459.
Foissner, W. & Song, W. 2002. Apofrontonia
lametschwandtneri nov gen., nov spec., a new peniculine
ciliate (Protozoa, Ciliophora) from Venezuela. European
Journal of Protistology, 38: 223-234.
Gates, M.A. & Berger, J. 1976. Morphological
stability in Tetrahymena pyriformis. Transactions
of the American Microscopical Society, 95:
11-22.
Giese, A.C. 1973. Blepharisma. The
biology of a light-sensitive protozoan. Stanford University
Press, Stanford, California.
Novarino, G. & Coute, A. 2000. Typification
and ultrastructural characterization of flagellate taxa from
museum collections - 1. Some Trachelomonas (Euglenophyta
= Englenozoa p.p.) from the Deflandre collections in Paris. Nova
Hedwigia. Zeitschrift fur Kryptogramenkunde, 70:
505-521.
Penard, E. 1922. Études sure
les Infusoires d'eau douce. Georg, Genève.
Thorne, J. 2003. The Zoological Record and
registration of new names in zoology. The Linnean, 19:
22-26.
Comment
on the proposed precedence of Bolboceras Kirby, 1819 (July)
(Insecta, Coleoptera) over Odonteus Samouelle, 1819 (June)
(Case 3097;
see BZN 59:
246-248, 280-281; 60: 303-311; 61:
43-45, 110-114, 171-173)
Pavel Štys and David
Král
Department of Zoology, Charles University, Vinicná 7,
128 44 Praha 2, Czech Republic
The case caused unusual
excitement among nomenclaturally minded coleopterists. We
believe that probably everything relevant has already been
written, and all the errors and misleading statements contained
in the original application by Jameson
& Howden (BZN 59: 246-248) have been
amended, particularly by Krell et al. (BZN 60:
303-311) and Smetana (BZN 61: 171-173).
We feel unhappy that a nomenclatural problem, which
could have been solved by direct application of the Articles
of the Code, developed into a kind of unnecessary transatlantic
battle. It was clear from the beginning that either the Nearticians
(should Odonteus be accepted as valid) or Palearcticians
(should the proposed Bolboceras win) must lose,
and the generic component of their cherished binomina must
be changed, since in the opinion of all the specialists the
names involved are subjective synonyms, more or less equivalent
in frequency of usage. What to do in such a case? To count
the number of species? There are ten New World and two Old
World species of the genus (not one, as stated in BZN
59: 246). Odonteus orientalis Mittal, 1998
(as Odontaeus) described from the Uttar Pradesh
province (India) has to be added to the list (Mittal, 1998).To
toss a coin? To manipulate the facts? Or, perhaps, to use
a simple and unequivocal, but for some probably too old-fashioned
Principle of Priority? The latter is, in our opinion, the
only acceptable arbiter in this and similar cases.
Therefore we unconditionally support the suggestions
formulated by Krell et al. (BZN 60: 309)
resulting in acceptance of Odonteus Samouelle, 1819
as a valid name of the genus. We also cannot see any reason
for continuation of this debate.
Additional reference
Mittal, J.C. 1998: New record of genus Odontaeus Klug
(Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae: Geotrupinae) with a new species
from Oriental Region. Journal of Entomological Research, 22:
385-386.
Comment
on the proposed precedence of Nematois australis Heydenreich,
1851 (currently Adela australis; Insecta, Lepidoptera)
over Tinea aldrovandella Villers, 1789
(Case 3271;
see BZN 60:
290-292)
Antonio Vives
SHILAP, Apartado de Correos, 331, E-28080, Madrid,
Spain
I write in support
of the application to give the name Nematois australis Heydenreich,
1851 precedence over Tinea aldrovandella Villers,
1789 whenever the two are considered to be synonyms. I agree
with the opinion of the authors that the identity of the
nominal species T. aldrovandella Villers, 1789 cannot
be established with certainty. The name T. aldrovandella Villers,
1789 should be considered a nomen oblitum.
