Reynoutria and Fallopia: two distinct genera also here?

Reynoutria and Fallopia have been recognized as distinct genera or just the same from time to time.
Recently, on both a genetic and morphological basis, they have been again separated:
http://digitale.cbnbl.org/documents/g6391.pdf

So, what to do in iNat?
Currently here all Reynoutria taxa are included in Fallopia.

Please forward to all who may be concerned.

@amc @annemirdl @duarte @erwin_pteridophilos @fabienpiednoir @finrod @jakob @jasonrgrant @marcoschmidtffm @martinbishop @purperlibel @qgroom @rmedina @smuele @tiggrx @torsten @vilseskog @wouterkoch @wouterteunissen

Posted on 13 de novembro de 2017, 09:08 AM by blue_celery blue_celery

Comentários

The PlantList as well as the Euro+Med Plantbase recognize Reynoutria, which might suggest that iNat should adopt this arrangement for species listed under this combination here:
http://www.theplantlist.org/1.1/browse/A/Polygonaceae/Reynoutria
http://ww2.bgbm.org/EuroPlusMed/PTaxonDetail.asp?NameCache=Reynoutria&PTRefFk=7300000

Not sure how this fits with other regional taxonomies, so maybe worth including others in this discussion? (it seems those tagged in here are mostly from Europe)

PS: a general discussion re taxonomies used by iNat can be found here www.inaturalist.org/journal/jakob/10253-taxonomic-backbones-for-europe-plus-some-others

Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

Yes, all or most of these addressees are from Europe, so, if possible, forward this post to all who may be concerned among the worldwide users of iNat.

Publicado por blue_celery mais de 6 anos antes
Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

ok, thanks for the tip!

Publicado por blue_celery mais de 6 anos antes

Yes, Reynoutria should be accepted (and some species stay in Fallopia).

I am quoting Alan Weakley here:
"This is completely legit. Phylogeny in Schuster, Reveal, & Kron (2011). Reynoutria has been in common (though not universal) use for decades and centuries. It remains a perhaps not completely resolved question of appropriate rank to apply to Fallopia, Reynoutria, Muehlenbeckia -- a case could be made for treating these as subgenera of a genus -- in which case the genus WOULD be Fallopia by priority (1763 vs. 1777)."

Publicado por vilseskog mais de 6 anos antes

@vilseskog thanks for your comment

Publicado por blue_celery mais de 6 anos antes

There is abundant support for the separation of Fallopia and Reynoutria, including chromosome number, chemistry, genetics, breeding systems and morphology. It is also helpful that there are clear morphological characters that the lay person can apply (extrafloral nectaries on the stems of Reynoutria, for example). Recognition of both genera is scientifically sound and intuitive-- an opportunity that should not be wasted.

Publicado por danielatha mais de 6 anos antes

i wouldn't support it unless and until it were in our established secondary references and even then begrudgingly. I'm not a big fan of the total mutilation of taxonomy, i think it's happening too fast based on too-new science. But if i am outvoted so be it :)

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

@charlie: see links in my first comment - PlantList recognizes both genera

Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

while it may not be perfect system we've mostly linked to the Jepson Manual and Flora of Nova Anglicae in North American and neither of those have this change AFAIK. The plants list is kind of seen as a secondary. Of coures if people in other continents want to make the change, we can't just let North America control it all. But, nevertheless, my 'vote' is to leave it alone for now. This comes down to my own opinions about how taxonomy works that probably aren't widely shared so i do expert to be overridden sometimes (always?). For those of us in the world of management and monitoring, the constant name changes create a burden of time and complication that are a detriment to conservation. I'd rather have polyphylletic groups in nomenclature than have 60 hours less a year because i'm pissing around with name changes in databases. But maybe i'm the only one.

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

Or maybe accept that taxonomy is showing progress, which is expressed in name changes? I guess you're also using current ecological concepts and terms rather than stuff that is clearly outdated.

As a scientist who is partly working in taxonomy, I find it not very helpful to read something like "total mutilation of taxonomy", but that's obviously my personal perception.

Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

i guess a more tactful way to say it is that everything has a tradeoff, it takes a nonzero amount of time to constantly update species names in every database, and time in conservation and management is very limited, so having to do this results in a real loss of time which might result in lack of time to do other things which could potentially result in things as bad as extinction of a species. So abundant taxonomy changes should only be pushed through if it's so important that it is worth that risk. And things like assigning ridiculously long or difficult or otherwise problematic names, or splitting things that could be considered subspecies, aggravate this as well. I personally feel the balance is shifted way too far towards changing taxonomy. Progress in understanding ecology and evolution is important, but constant name changes have real impacts. If I were in charge, which i am obviously not, we'd maybe just change every 10 years or something, and there'd be a ban on names like this: https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/species/chamaepericlymenum/canadense/ (I don't care if Linnaeus himself named it. it's stupid.)

Maybe 'total mutilation of databases' is more fair, it's certainly true.

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

I think this is vastly underestimating the value of taxonomy for conservation, but that's a long discussion on its own, and we probably want to have this thread focussed on the original question.

Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

in general I'm more a lumper than a splitter, and agree with the general point raised by @charlie that the "new" (in brackets as it means the last 20 years, more or less...) taxonomical progress hasn't always been much helpful... at least outside "pure" taxonomy. However in this specific issue, I'd "vote" to use Reynoutria japonica instead of Fallopia japonica :-)

Publicado por finrod mais de 6 anos antes

For those who are interested in the supposed contradiction b/w conservation and taxonomy, I recommend reading
https://doi.org/10.1038/546025a
https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4317.1.10

(plus several commentaries on Nature available here www.nature.com/nature/journal/v546/n7660/index.html#cr)

Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

those articles are kind of saying something similar to what i am saying - lack of consistency, various definition of species, etc, is making a mess. I am not saying taxonomy doesn't matter, but rather that it's been inconsistently applied and rapidly changed without much evident oversight. Anyhow another big factor is where you are and what taxa you are talking about because those factors affect this a lot too. Anyhow... sorry for derailing.

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

Oh dear, maybe read all of it.

Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

thanks for the condescending comment and unwarranted assumptions. It's really helpful and you sure got me convinced. Somehow i agree with you now.. let's change the taxa names every day! and the longer the better! :)

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

The point is that maybe we all should reflect on what a species is. Is it something that always existed? Or is it something that's been invented by men to organize living beings. In this light, I do not see so many problems with changing taxonomies since they are an "artificial tool" to understand biodiversity. Moreover, since some years population genetics has provided data that are useful for conservation purposes at the population level thus refining the knowledges about the differences well beyond the specific level.

Here we are dealing with genera that could be considered as distinct, and the point is to decide whether being in accordance with an up-to-date and rather well supported arrangement or to maintain a state that could be considered, somehow, obsolete, despite for some reasons still useful.
In the end, I would say that, apart being lumpers or splitters, it would be important to develop a critical point of view and to be sustained by common sense when deciding to accept or refuse the latest taxonomical treatment.

Definitively it's good for me that such a discussion on some "bad" weeds has raised such important issues.

Publicado por blue_celery mais de 6 anos antes

"in this light, I do not see so many problems with changing taxonomies since they are an "artificial tool" to understand biodiversity. "
i think they are kind of like street names. Useful in finding your way. Sometimes need to be changed. But if you change most of them every few years, people keep getting lost. So even if the new street names are better,it isn't always worth changing them right away.

In terms of these particular taxa, on a local level it will cause problems because no one here (northeastern US) uses those names I am not trying to make the site US Centric so if truly they are the names being adopted elsewhere perhaps we should switch. But the plant remains the same regardless of what we call it.

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

I'm restraining an urge to launch into a philosophical disquisition. Looking at the specifics of this case:
1) The change from Fallopia to Reynoutria appears to be founded on the principle of monophyly--that is, only by splitting off Reynoutria can we ensure that all Fallopia sp. are more closely related to one another than to other genera. Reassigning genera for that reason seems more justified, to me, than when someone is splitting a monophyletic genus into monophyletic subgenera, or vice versa, which is much more a matter of taste. The main question I would ask of people who know more about the Polygonaceae is whether the Kron lab's phylogenetic results are robust: from the number of loci used and the bootstrap values in the tree, I would expect that this will not be overturned, but I wouldn't mind a second opinion.
2) Kron and co-workers do list some synapomorphies for the genera: "Both Fallopia and Reynoutria have bisexual flowers, but they are functionally dioecious in Reynoutria (Kim and Park 2000; Barney et al. 2006), and some populations also have pistillate flowers (Beerling et al. 1994; Freeman and Hinds 2005). Fallopia has short, partially fused styles with capitate stigmas that are either smooth or papillate. The styles in Reynoutria are long and distinct with triangular stigmas that are fimbriate." Someone has also reassigned a number of fossil taxa from Polygonum s.l. among the genera, so presumably there's a sound enough morphological basis for that: https://biotaxa.org/Phytotaxa/article/view/phytotaxa.308.1.5

So all in all, this looks like a reasonable change, and I'd expect that the species will stay in Reynoutria for the foreseeable future.

Publicado por choess mais de 6 anos antes

Thanks for the ping on this. I checked with Stephen Meyers, who is a taxonomist with the Oregon Flora Project, whose taxonomy we follow for our species databases. They reviewed this paper and the Reynoutria alignment but decided to stay with Fallopia for several reasons. I am passing this on from Stephen without comment as I have not read the paper: "We have not done so [switching to Reynoutria] because of some weaknesses in the study. 1. The sampling was weak (one sample per taxon). 2. The authors "mined" over half their DNA sequences from GENBANK (lack of quality control). And finally, 3. According to their phylogeny Fallopia and Reynoutria occupy very close sister clades. As such, "splitting" them is neither necessary or (in our opinion) pragmatic."

Publicado por wisel mais de 6 anos antes

@wisel thanks, very interesting!
@charlie "they are kind of like street names. Useful in finding your way. Sometimes need to be changed. But if you change most of them every few years, people keep getting lost", imho no, they won't get lost... but only because they'll start using something else to find their way... exactly as it's happening in natural history: recently we've been asked by a journal to use the English name and not the scientific one through the text (the scientific name is cited, obviously, but as sparingly as possible) even if this sounds paradoxical to me...

Publicado por finrod mais de 6 anos antes

Interesting. Of course, the common names aren't consistent everywhere as well. Even on iNat there was some vigorous debating as one curator decided to change a bunch of them, a lot of it is location based and iNat lets you assign names to places but it doesn't always work well. recently some botanist have been pushing to force the COMMON names to match phylogenetics which is ridiculous imho but a whole other rant so i won't get going on it :)

I suspect as genetic research goes on we will find that there are all kinds of totally undistinguishable entities that count as species under some definitions but differ only in chemical or genetic ways we can't see. So what do we do with those? Interesting times.

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

indeed!

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

@wisel Interesting, although it doesn't seem to refute the central (IMO) point, that Fallopia including Reynoutria is paraphyletic over Muehlenbeckia--indeed 3) reads to me like a tacit endorsement of paraphyly. But I'm not part of the Hennig Society's shock troops, so I'm not troubled if we leave it alone.

@charlie I think (vascular plant) botany is actually an outlier in this respect, together perhaps with birding--we're used to being able to go out and identify with nothing but morphology and a hand lens. OTOH, moss, fungus, & lichen people are used to dragging things back to the compound microscope, spotting potassium hydroxide onto slices of tissue, etc. The Appalachians are, as I understand it, littered with cryptic Desmognathus salamander species that are well-nigh indistinguishable; I wonder how the herpers cope?

Publicado por choess mais de 6 anos antes

Hah! It's true. But that is one of the reasons plants are so important for assessing ecology. It isn't that they are more important than amphibians or fungi or insects! But they stay in the same place and are relatively easy to identify (except the ones that aren't). And because they can't move, they are especially important for indicating conditions over time - especially trees and shrubs. If a wetland dries up a frog hops away and can come back later but if it becomes too dry for black ash the black ash all dies and it takes years for mature black ash trees to return even if the habitat is suitable again. I suspect some time in the next few decades we will have hand held gene sequencing 'trichorders' that will really revolutionize ecology by allowing us to track fungal hyphae, bacteria in soil, etc. But in the mean time, it's essential for us to be able to go to a site, walk around or lay out a plot or transect, and reasonably identify the plant species there. Yeah we take a few home to key out, but one can go to a wetland or forest or desert and get a quick story at least just by walking through. And for the forseeable future, genetic tech will not be accessible to the least wealthy groups of people who want to assess and understand their ecosystems... but humans have been naming plants as long as we have been able to make words or gestures. Probably pre-Homo sapiens. I'm not a birder but I know birds are important for the inverse reason to plants - because they are so mobile. A maple may tough out poor conditions for years before dying, but a bird will quickly leave when habitat isn't suitable.

Maybe the answer is to let taxonomy drift off into the non-visible and create a new non-phylogenetic classification system for plants too. But that gets wicked complicated.

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

@charlie your line of thought assumes that something that looks similar, but in fact is composed of a complex of cryptic species, responds in an identical or at least very similar way. There's plenty of research showing that these cryptic species often respond quite differently from each other, so having a poorly resolved taxonomy is likely to obscure things rather than fostering our ecological knowledge.

Apart from these general thoughts, it might be time to wrap this discussion up - as far as I understand it, regional floras as per iNat's curator guide treat it differently, hence the Plant List would be a tie breaker. In addition to that, several have pointed out that there are morphological characters by which the 2 genera can be identified.

Publicado por jakob mais de 6 anos antes

Last thought: i agree there are probably some fascinating ecological/habitat differences of the cryptic species and i hope someday we are able to collect spatial data on them to a large enough extent to parse those out!

Publicado por charlie mais de 6 anos antes

Thanks for all the contributions.
It appears that we should reflect a little bit more about the treatment of this plants to eb adopted here.

Publicado por blue_celery mais de 6 anos antes

Hi blue, can you explain the difference? I ask you this because I am a normal man and an amateur photographer.
Good evening ...
Marco

Publicado por naturalista1989 quase 4 anos antes

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