Flag for Taxon: Lady Beetles (Family Coccinellidae)
| Flagger | Content Author | Content | Reason | Flag Created | Resolved by | Resolution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| bernalarce | Lady Beetles (Family Coccinellidae) |
the family was completely reviewed by Seago et al. 2011. It now only contains two subfamilies, and many tribes within Coccinellinae doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2011.03.015 |
Nov. 25, 2019 22:49:33 +0000 | Not Resolved |
Comments
I think we tend to follow BugGuide, which is just as outdated, and this is likely the main reasoning for why we follow this treatment still.
Can you list the subfamily/tribe treatment as given in that revision? I would like to see what it has done, since my notes still follow the "ye olde" subfamily framework. I appreciate you taking this up!
I have no issues with this curatorial undertaking -- it's much appreciated! :) I particularly enjoy this aspect of iNat -- when I look up old synonymy, the updated taxon shows up after curation.
You may want to toss in the reference on this 'master list of insect authorities' (Riaan, you and @bobby23 have conversed about it some already there, I believe):
https://www.inaturalist.org/journal/bobby23/18528-master-list-of-insect-authorities-class-insecta-a-work-in-progress
As James mentions, Bugguide is usually the go-to, albeit outdated on some taxa, for North American (north of Mexico) insects....
Thanks so much for working on this, Riaan!
PS. If you can list the changes, I can probably update BugGuide too...
o.k by me!
I'm far more clueless than my identification count may make you think. So I'll definitely not stop those who know what they are doing from doing what needs to be done. :-)
I still follow Bouchard et al, 2011 for global taxonomy of coleoptera. I hope there will be an update soon.
@willogonzalez (for your information)
Bouchard et al 2011 is OK. Currently in iNaturalist except a few entries (Microweisea and Gnathoweisea) in the Microweiseinae Subfamily, Microweiseini tribe, all other species remain in the only Coccinellinae subfamily, making the division into subfamilies of little practical value. The most important thing would be to have groupings for the tribes. I remember few changes that have been made to the Bouchard tribes scheme, especially Sukunahikonini = Microweiseini and Carunodulini in Microweiseinae (Escalona and Slipinsky 2012), Eremochilini = Epilachnini and Cynegetini = Madaini = Epilachnini (Tomasewska & Szawaryn 2016) and Selvadiini under Hyperaspidini (Vandenberg and Hanson 2019).
I find the division of subfamilies (in the outdated treatment) very handy, at least for the US and EU fauna. It would be desirable to keep those levels, as tribes, rather than lose them entirely. iNat doesn't usually put much effort into tribe-level classification, but I would encourage it here.
It seems I have a lot to research about the current treatment. If anyone can send me the full titles of the publications, I would appreciate it.
I agree with @silversea_starsong, really the subfamilies of Sasaji are very practical, and allow to establish affinities between tribes that miss the large subfamily Coccinellinae, independent that are not monophyletic. In fact on my website of Coccinellidae of South America (www.coccinellidae.cl) I maintain them.
The publications are at http://www.coccinellidae.cl/paginasWebChile/Paginas/Bibliografia_01.php. If you need any, I can send them to you by email (willogonzalez@yahoo.com).
Revised classification of Coccinellidae should be adopted according to:
Che, LiHeng; et al. (2021). "New insights into the phylogeny and evolution of lady beetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) by extensive sampling of genes and species". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 156 (156): 107045. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2020.107045
https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2020.107045
should be adopted according to
Don't be overhasty to accept everything in Che &al 2021 willy-nillily. Just look what happened to Seago &al 2011.
RnStlsIdt
Everything is better than what we have now. People do identifications to subfamilies or tribes and confusion arises because everyone uses a different concept of tribes/subfamilies. Certainly new changes may still happen but that should not stop iNat to adopt changes. Otherwise be can go back to the time when everything was Cocinella.
Everything is better than what we have now
You are right. I started working on this last night. It is a large project, and precarious. Some changes are so large that I should rather ask permission for them from Staff. Don't want to bog down the entire platform; there are special mechanisms not available to me.
I also expect a lot of grassroots resistance. But yes, let us move ahead. Let's stop being held back by BugGuide.
Thanks, @traianbertau.
Rn
Should other identifiers be notified of the upcoming changes?
They are being kept in the loop. And you've discovered this flag for yourself now.
Good to know, thanks.
At this point in time it seems pretty sensible to make the changes, and I can also make them on BugGuide when that happens.
Thank you for this flag, Bernal.
I am very well aware that the classification of the lady beetles on iNaturalist is severely outdated. It has been a big botheration to me ever since I joined in the fun here. The publication you cited is now almost a decade old. There have been additional refinements subsequently. I really think it is time for iNat to catch up with the previous decade as we enter the next decade!
I have time to do the complete overhaul in the following couple of days. I have everything on my hard drive, much of it already summarised in my own database.
Herewith I ask the the ten top identifiers of Coccinellidae on iNat whether I can go ahead; and whether they have any additional comments. What are your thoughts, @rob-westerduijn, @gillessanmartin, @borisb, @silversea_starsong, @richyfourtytwo, @sambiology, @dusty_in_vilas-tx, @alex_cicindela_guy, @aguilita and @kostaszontanos?
I await consensus before I proceed.
Riaan
@bernalarce