A reply to ‘Science versus vernacular’: should some taxa of animals and plants be renamed according to ‘indigenous’ practices?

Palma & Heath (2021) have recently commented on our proposal to reinstate indigenous names within the Linnaean system of nomenclature on the basis of their chronological priority. They argue that this challenges rules that have been unquestioned for 250 years. However, we hold that the rules of the various codes of nomenclature are constantly under review. The opinion they prosecute crystallises down, in large part, to one that suggests that because there are pre-existing rules about priority, we should not change these: an argument that involves a degree of circularity. Unfortunately, Palma and Heath misinterpret our proposal throughout much of their discussion. We do not advocate replacing the binomina as is claimed nor do we advocate for name changes where there is no consensus on a given taxon among the people indigenous to the natural distribution of that taxon. Our proposal is that indigenous names can replace the species epithet where there is a consensus on a single indigenous name for a taxon throughout its distribution and where there is demonstrable temporal priority. Without such consensus, species that cover wide distributions and have multiple indigenous names will, under our proposal, remain unchanged in their nomenclature.

New nomenclatural and taxonomic adjustments in Dracaena (Asparagaceae)

Recent molecular phylogenetic studies showed that the genus Sansevieria (excluding S. sambiranensis) forms a monophyletic clade nested within the paraphyletic genus Dracaena. Consequently, the genus Sansevieria was sunk into the genus Dracaena and new combinations were published to accommodate the transfer of taxa from Sansevieria into Dracaena. Since the inclusion of Sansevieria into Dracaena, new taxa have been published in Sansevieria. This paper presents fourteen name changes including twelve new combinations in Dracaena and two rank adjustments, one new synonym, and one lectotypification aiming at further standardisation of the taxonomy of Dracaena.

The Reptile Database: Curating the biodiversity literature without funding

The Reptile Database (RDB) curates the literature and taxonomy for about 14,000 species and subspecies of reptiles (Uetz et al. 2021). Together with a few other databases, the RDB curates the literature for about 70,000 species of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. While it acts as a current name list for extant reptile taxa, including synonymies, it also collects images (currently ~18,000, representing half of all species), type information, diagnoses and descriptions, and a bibliography of 62,000 references, most of which are linked to online sources. The database is also extensively cross-referenced to citizen science projects (iNaturalist), the NCBI taxonomy, the IUCN Red List, and several others, and serves as data provider (for reptiles) for the Catalogue of Life. A major challenge for the Reptile database is the consistent curation of the literature, which requires the addition of about 2000 papers a year, including about 200 new species descriptions and numerous taxonomic changes. For instance, during the past five years, almost 1000 species changed their names, in addition to the ~900 species that were newly described, i.e., almost 20% of all reptile species were described or changed their name within just a half decade! While the database can keep track of name changes, it remains a largely unsolved problem of how these name changes can or should be translated into related databases such as the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which keeps track of the literature independently (but exchanges data with the RDB). Some sites use the web services of the RDB to update their taxonomy, such as Calphotos or iNaturalist, but many do not or have not been able to implement automated name tracking. The RDB also works with the Global Assessment of Reptile Distributions (GARD Initiative) to keep track of range changes. After GARD published a collection of ~10,000 range maps for reptiles in 2017, more than half of these maps have changed in area size by more than 5% since the initial release. The database has developed several avenues for streamlining and optimizing curation of the literature, e.g., (semi-) automated requests for publications, species descriptions, and photos from authors, but the process is far from fully automated. Questions remain: how can taxonomic databases develop, share, and exchange better tools for curation? Can we standardize data collection and processing? How can we automatically exchange data with other data sources? How can we optimize the process of scientific publication to streamline databasing and automated information extraction?

The Association of Professional Chaplains: 75 Years of Growth and Excellence

2021 is the 75th anniversary of the Association of Professional Chaplains. This article celebrates this vibrant history tracing the history of APC and its predecessor organizations through name changes and mergers, recounting their growth toward inclusion and diversity, and illustrating the history of their collaboration ending with a possible new merger with ACPE. Through their commitment to growth and excellency, APC is arguably one of the premier spiritual care organizations in the world.

Nomenclatural issues concerning cultured yeasts and other fungi: why it is important to avoid unneeded name changes

ABSTRACTThe unambiguous application of fungal names is important to communicate scientific findings. Names are critical for (clinical) diagnostics, legal compliance, and regulatory controls, such as biosafety, food security, quarantine regulations, and industrial applications. Consequently, the stability of the taxonomic system and the traceability of nomenclatural changes is crucial for a broad range of users and taxonomists. The unambiguous application of names is assured by the preservation of nomenclatural history and the physical organisms representing a name. Fungi are extremely diverse in terms of ecology, lifestyle, and methods of study. Predominantly unicellular fungi known as yeasts are usually investigated as living cultures. Methods to characterize yeasts include physiological (growth) tests and experiments to induce a sexual morph; both methods require viable cultures. Thus, the preservation and availability of viable reference cultures are important, and cultures representing reference material are cited in species descriptions. Historical surveys revealed drawbacks and inconsistencies between past practices and modern requirements as stated in the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants (ICNafp). Improper typification of yeasts is a common problem, resulting in a large number invalid yeast species names. With this opinion letter, we address the problem that culturable microorganisms, notably some fungi and algae, require specific provisions under the ICNafp. We use yeasts as a prominent example of fungi known from cultures. But viable type material is important not only for yeasts, but also for other cultivable Fungi that are characterized by particular morphological structures (a specific type of spores), growth properties, and secondary metabolites. We summarize potential proposals which, in our opinion, will improve the stability of fungal names, in particular by protecting those names for which the reference material can be traced back to the original isolate.