Atalopedes. This
happens when we can't automatically assign an identification to one of the
output taxa.
Review identifications of Atalopedes campestris 52075
Taxonomic Split 123781
(Committed on 2023-10-24)
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Comments
@nlblock @hpavulaan @robberfly @arbutterflynut Do you know where to find detailed range info for Atalopedes campestris and A. huron, at the state/province level in the US, Canada, and Mexico and country level for places south of Mexico?
I made approximate range maps ("atlases") for the two species/former subspecies so that once this species split is committed, most records will end up associated with the right species. I don't know which one species -- or if both species -- occur in the mountain states of the US and Mexico, so my maps need more input in those areas.
The current draft of the range maps are available at the green Atlas links above the map on this page. On those pages, the ranges I drafted are highlighted in green and are not the red squares.
Currently, I'd say the split is reliably indicated on the iNat map of A. campestris. Campestris seems confined to the immediate west coast, whereas huron occupies the remainder of the range.
Yes, the few mountain states are problematic. I have trouble distinguishing the two taxa because texts often simply refer to campestris. We'll have to come up with at least one reliable differentiating character.
I did some searching in the Biodiversity Heritage Library to see if any article told how to distinguish the two species without finding the answer.
Is it approximately correct to confine campestris to WA, OR, CA, and Baja California norte, and all other Can-US-Mex states/provinces go to huron?
I'm committing this taxon split today. Records from some of the mountain states of Mexico and US will have the IDs pushed up to genus to be reidentified. Waiting on better range info before committing this has resulted in the atlases become inaccurate, and I had to fix them again. Plus other users are now duplicating the taxa. So waiting longer may make more of a mess than having records from a few states needing to be reidentified. This split should get most things right today.
I guess that didn't go as planned, with campestris records all over both species' ranges?
it might be worth reverting this one and re-doing the atlases. I just looked at the sampling in Zhang et al. 2022 and they had huron samples from as far west as the trans-pecos of Texas, so I think huron can be safely atlased that far west, and probably including Colorado and New Mexico. Then with campestris in California, Oregon, and Washington. Arizona seems like a big question mark
Looks like the problem might be that the input species is still active and identical to one of the output species. I think that would produce the mess.
A large number of A. campestris records are still queued for processing the automated ID updates. Right now only about half the records have been processed, and more were processed since an hour ago. I see no sign of the split not going as planned.
One look at the atlases will show that Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico are included in A. huron and excluded from A. campestris. Records from those states are being reassigned to A. huron. I see no reason to revert this split.
It is correct usage for the same A. campestris taxon to be both an input and output taxon in this split. Some records of A. campestris will remain so by range, and those records do not need automatic reidentifications doubling the ID history of each record when the scientific name has not changed. I see no such "mess."
Ok. I'll wait to see how it progresses in the next day or so. Thanks for your work on this
From the curator's guide: "iNaturalist taxa represent taxonomic concepts, meaning taxa can represent different things even if they have the same name. So they should have distinct taxon IDs and distinct taxon pages. For example, this taxonomic change split Rhipidura fuliginosa into Rhipidura albiscapa and Rhipidura fuliginosa, but the older, broader concept of Rhipidura fuliginosa has a different taxon id (8161) than the newer, narrower concept with the same name (244276). So when making a taxonomic split or merge, make sure you first make a new taxon if necessary. If the new taxon bears the same name as an existing taxon, you will need to mark the existing one as "inactive" before the system will let you create the new one. "
Since the different versions of A. campestris have different scopes/meanings, they should have different taxon IDs, which this way they do not. I really hope though it gets resolved, I didn't know this is still in the process. Fingers crossed!! And for sure, thanks for dealing with it! I dread ever doing taxon changes as big as this
Ah, thanks!
@loarie @kueda Can you tell if this taxon split with atlases is still processing? It has the appearance that it has stalled just before reaching its end, with a few hundred more records left to change from A. campestris to A. huron. The number of records of each species hasn't changed in about 24 hr, and the notice at the top of this page that the records may still be processing is no longer there. A second issue is that there are many former A. campestris records in the eastern 2/3 of the US that have had their user IDs updated to A. huron but the community ID is stale at A. campestris, such as https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141210718 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/141100998.
known bug - https://github.com/inaturalist/inaturalist/issues/3855
I'm running a mop up but it might take a while
Looks like the mop-up has helped. Thanks.
great thanks
I guess I am not sure what to do. I live in Nebraska and most of my observations of Sachems are in my state. Am I supposed to change all of them? Most of the time when these taxon splits occur, it doesn't impact my observations.
I think I should wait a while to make any changes.
@rachelkunchall did you opt out of taxon changes? If you didn't than this split should take care of you content. If you did opt out, then yes you'll have to update them manually
@loarie There's still a little remaining weirdness from the Sachem split. There are a lot observations that are shown at Research Grade where all of the automated taxon-split IDs are in agreement as Huron Sachem, but all of those correct Huron IDs are listed as "maverick."
Here's a list of over 100 of these on observations that involve my IDs:
https://www.inaturalist.org/identifications?category=maverick&user_id=d2b
thanks - mopping those up now
I have tons of these dainty moths visiting my west garden more each year.
Only recently did I learn that moths are an ecosystem health indicator?
Quite honored to have them. Looking forward to spring!
Don't commit! The atlases of the output species are not yet completed.