Bluebell15

Synonym (taxonomy)‎

Hi, nice changes to that page! I have a couple of small comments, although it is certainly unfair of me to make them to you. Please feel free to ignore them if these are too difficult(!).

"Synonyms may arise whenever a taxon is split into more taxa" I'm not sure how that would happen.

If you can explain the zoological term "available name" I think that would be a huge advance for science, not just for my education, but I realize that might be asking the impossible. There is an identical term in botany (listed in the subject index to the code at http://ibot.sav.sk/icbn/main.htm), but I think its meaning must be different.

"One basic principle of zoological nomenclature is that the earliest correctly published and available name (the senior synonym) takes precedence and must be used for the taxon, if no other restrictions interfere" we botanists have the principle of priority too. As far as I can tell, the codes are identical in that respect, except for "page priority" in zoology ("position precedence"), whereas botanists are trying to move away from "mechanical" means of making such decisions.

Great contribution, that part of wikipedia was in the "despair" category for me! Nadiatalent (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Dear Nadiatalent,

Thank you. Yes, many pages in this area are not what they could be. A major source of trouble is that often there is a forced unity, shoehorning pieces on zoology and botany in together, when these are very different in many respects. It would be much better to have, say, five independent pages, so that each could grow naturally.

As to the "Synonyms may arise whenever a taxon is split into more taxa" this may happen in such cases as you explained with Avicennia, but in fact also with Taraxacum: if you are going to treat one of those satellite species and list its synonyms, then surely T. officinale rates a mention?

I don't see that it would be too difficult to explain "available name" (much more tricky to explain "available"!), but in fact there is too much stuff that does not really belong here on the page already. If I recall correctly, page priority in zoology is a thing of the past? - Bluebell15 (talk) 14:08, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi again (sorry, I altered the synonymy page before seeing this). About synonyms arising when a split is made, I may be missing something here, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps it has something to do with using synonym to mean a taxon and its type (as I consider appropriate) but perhaps others consider a synonym to be an entry in a list. Perhaps my latest change to the synonymy page could simply be deleted, and I'll think about how this might be made clearer in the long term. (I wouldn't list Taraxacum officinale as a synonym of one of its satellite species, but might list the satellite as one of T. officinale's synonyms.) About page priority in zoology, a very knowledgeable colleague tells me that the words may have disappeared "but Moravec et al., 2002 (Systematic parasitology 52:193-198) were wrong in saying that it hasn't been used since 1985. Its presence pervades the discussion of priority, and it is also called "position precedence"."

It is good to be discussing this, it would be so much easier to despair about this material in the wiki. Nadiatalent (talk) 15:11, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I think your latest change was not good. These statements are not true, and besides that a lede should be a general introduction for the general reader, it should not get too technical.

As to synonyms raised by splitting taxa, I would suppose that if a flora treats a well-known plant by a particular name, and the new edition of that flora treats the same plant under a different name (because of a split) it would be very likely to report the old name (known to so many flora users) as a synonym, even though that name remains in use as a correct name in other countries.

As to page precedence, I checked and it is still in the current zoological Code ("69A.10. All other things being equal, preference should be given to the nominal species cited first in the work, page or line ("position precedence").", although in a very out-of-the way place, and only in a recommendation. In the previous edition it was in two recommendations. I don't really see that it has any significant bearing here, and I would hesitate to make any statement about how priority in the zoological and botanical Code compares, except that it is one of the most important principles in both Codes. - Bluebell15 (talk) 12:33, 11 October 2011 (UTC)