At long last, AOU 2010 pending proposals A (3 Viewers)

[njlarsen]

Like last year, I'll be keeping an eye on this forum regarding posts about the AOU-North American Classification Committee proposals. I value the input from posters on this forum and share these with other members. I will let you know if we can use opinions on specific topics, especially English names (like the Winter Wren from the 2009 proposals, which we get to visit again).

Andy Kratter
member, AOU North American Classification Committee

Thanks Andy,
we (I should really say I, but I suspect there are others who agree with me) appreciate that openness. :t:

Regarding the second part of your post, I guess a few of us would like to see the NACC move towards a process more like the SACC process.

Niels

 

[Snapdragyn]

Regarding the second part of your post, I guess a few of us would like to see the NACC move towards a process more like the SACC process.

Indeed, I think a web-based approach such as the SACC uses, with yearly summaries of actions to date in the July issue of the Auk would be a perfect fusion of the two systems.

Regarding common names in the event of a moorhen split, I would hope that American Moorhen would at least be on the table. It seems more obvious than Laughing Moorhen to me, & avoids having a different group name for the widespread Gallinula of the Americas (& since we don't call it a 'Purple Porphyre', I don't go for the argument that we must use 'Gallinule' for the moorhen in order to match the genus name).

 

[Mysticete]

The Moorhen name change is something I am also pretty ambivalent about. It's been "Common Moorhen" as long as I was a birder. I think the name situation of turning it back into Common Gallinule is not going to be confusing...There are only one or two records of the old world form within AOU jurisdiction, so it's not like record committees are going to have to worry about every moorhen reported, unless it is from the Aleutians.


P.S. I have no problem with the Chickadee proposed names

 

[Mysticete]

As for proposal systems, sure we all like SACC, but I can see the appeal of the NACC method. Having one set of proposals to read over and vote on at once, might be easier than having a different proposal every week. Especially since I am sure most of the committee members probably read the background literature cited.

Something that is easy to forget is that this is a side job for most committee (all?) committee members, and and they have their own papers and projects to work on, students to advise, tours to lead, etc.

 

[AlexC]

Thanks Andy,
we (I should really say I, but I suspect there are others who agree with me) appreciate that openness. :t:

Regarding the second part of your post, I guess a few of us would like to see the NACC move towards a process more like the SACC process.

Niels

I agree with Niels on both counts here. In terms of the NACC's process, I think that the pitfalls of it being drawn out - at least from the perspective of the public - were highlighted this past year. All American birders eagerly await the AOU's new supplements annually like kids on Christmas. But this year I found myself profoundly confused, as not only was there the expected late-in-the-year publication through the Auk, but there were also errors abound in the 51st supplement! Multiple corrections had to be made and are listed on the AOU's site. I literally reached the point where I didn't know which PDF file or aou.org link I had to go to find where the correct information was.

I truly appreciate everything the NACC members do and I think in terms of proposal evaluation itself they provide a great service. However, if the process is going to be drawn out by this decades old standard decreeing a proper, annual supplement publication, is it too much to ask for the lone publication to be without error? We live in a new and thriving age of technology and instantaneous exchange of information. The SACC's process exhibits change for the better.

It speaks volumes about efficiency that the SACC has been in existence for less than a decade and it is the NACC who is found playing catch up every year.

 

[Mysticete]

The SACC checklist though is still not in a final phase. When they agree to split something, it doesn't mean going through back through a already published document to split, delete, or modify stuff that is already in a published (for many printed) form. I think SACC has less issues with errors because the SACC checklist doesn't have to deal with that.

Apples and Oranges

I would like to see a move to a SACC system, but I think everyone here underestimates the amount of work committee members do. and correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think they are paid for any of that as well

 

[Richard Klim]

As for proposal systems, sure we all like SACC, but I can see the appeal of the NACC method. Having one set of proposals to read over and vote on at once, might be easier than having a different proposal every week. Especially since I am sure most of the committee members probably read the background literature cited.

Something that is easy to forget is that this is a side job for most committee (all?) committee members, and and they have their own papers and projects to work on, students to advise, tours to lead, etc.

Yes, you're absolutely right, Morgan, and I greatly respect NACC's work. Trouble is, SACC has set the bar very high for checklist committees everywhere (and it's all the more impressive given the number of SACC proposals, and multi-national/lingual committee membership).

[Still unimaginable in Europe, where most birders defer to the perceived wisdom of their national committee without question, and are happy to accept decisions by decree, with no visibility of any consultation process.]

Richard

 

[Kirk Roth]

Trouble is, SACC has set the bar very high for checklist committees everywhere (and it's all the more impressive given the number of SACC proposals, and multi-national/lingual committee membership).

How true! But at least the NACC is moving in the right direction!

P.S. I have no problem with the Chickadee proposed names

Personally, I don't like patronyms - I'd rather have names that describe natural history, but I'm sure this is quite the minority opinion. As far as patronyms go, Gambel and Bailey are good ones for this species. I say "this," because I'm not totally convinced that this split is warranted. If it is, I think we should see proposals soon for Pacific/Rocky Mountain/Eastern Black-capped Chickadee, Northern/Southern Chestnut-backed Chickadee, Cajun/Eastern Carolina Chickadee, just for consistency's sake.

Regarding common names in the event of a moorhen split, I would hope that American Moorhen would at least be on the table.

I think this is good to consider.

Thanks Andy, we (I should really say I, but I suspect there are others who agree with me) appreciate that openness.

I second this. Good job, NACC, for keeping your considerations broad.

I think that in this thread so far we have had three different people (me included) who each have three different ideas for what the names are/should be. Obviously this says something about this issue.

Not to mention the fact that it's a reproposal! Whatever is decided, people will get used to it with time, just like everything else (although people do indeed seem to use gallinule/moorhen interchangeably here in the midwest, but I digress!) Incidentally, I have/had two ideas for the wrens: Pacific and Winter, followed by Pacific and Boreal, if must be. See other threads for long and grueling Wren Wrants from last year's proposals. Which leads me to...

AOU traditionally has not liked to come back to reassess differences without new data, and I don't see anything in Steve Howell's argument that is new.

With all due respect to Steve, this is a weird, weird proposal. Some good reasons for all the wren names have been well explained before (again, see the "other" wren thread), but Steve's proposal is in serious need of "tightening up." It comes off as an emotionally-charged rant, rather than a professional proposal. I don't foresee the snarky comments being an effective way to convince the committee to change their mind. Far better would be: documentation of confusion (both scientific and public), arguments for consistency with other policies and decisions, historical arguments, or at least an argument with some logical and etymological consistency. For better or worse, I feel that rather than convincing NACC to reconsider their naming decision, this proposal may be the "nail in the coffin" for many years.

Two, three, or four way split of Yellow-rumped Warbler

I like the three-way. Followed by the two-way. nigrifrons seems, from most sources I've read, to intergrade really broadly, perhaps moreso than Myrtle/Audubon's (or rather, Eastern and Western Yellow-rumped Warbler? Feel free to smack me). But nigrifrons doesn't have the benefit of evidence of postzygotic selection, unless I've missed it somewhere along the line.

Thanks for putting up with me!
-Kirk

 

[Richard Klim]

The SACC checklist though is still not in a final phase. When they agree to split something, it doesn't mean going through back through a already published document to split, delete, or modify stuff that is already in a published (for many printed) form.

Just a thought on that...

I wonder if AOU-NACC has made a rod for its own back, maintaining an old printed document? Clearly, much effort goes into providing comprehensive page-by-page textual updates (overview, list of species, check-list, list of French names...) to the 1998 Check-list in each annual supplement, and it's probably this onerous task that renders more dynamic updating impractical. But is this perhaps just wasted effort? Who actually prints out text revisions for insertion into a fading 7th Edition every July? Most of it (citations, habitat, distribution etc) is just standard material, unnecessarily duplicating data readily available in BNA Online, HBW, Zoonomen, H&M3 and numerous other references. I doubt that the AOU Check-list is many people's first point of reference for such information.

The two main roles of the check-list are to list the species reliably recorded in the AOU area, and to indicate AOU's current taxonomic treatment of N American birds at species-level and above. Surely those basic requirements would be adequately fulfilled by a simple but actively-maintained online checklist with footnotes, as implemented very effectively by SACC. [A working draft of the full print-version check-list could still be maintained behind the scenes for publication every 15-25 years.]

Richard

 

[Gavin Bieber]

Hear hear Alex,
Well stated. Many state ornithological committees are switching over to a web-based system, with more immediacy and public involvement, and I would love to see the N.A.C.C. Do e same.

 

[Kirk Roth]

Hear hear Alex,
Well stated. Many state ornithological committees are switching over to a web-based system, with more immediacy and public involvement, and I would love to see the N.A.C.C. Do e same.

Not just state committees.... for example, IOC has already added "Bailey's Chickadee" to its list of potential splits:

http://www.worldbirdnames.org/updates-PS.html

Now that is what I call immediacy!

 

[Kirk Roth]

Not just state committees.... for example, IOC has already added "Bailey's Chickadee" to its list of potential splits:

http://www.worldbirdnames.org/updates-PS.html

Now that is what I call immediacy!

Although I must note that immediacy may come at the price of accuracy. As of this writing, "Bailey's Chickadee" is listed squarely between the sawwing swallows and Ridgeway's Swallow.

I'm sure it will be fixed approximately ten seconds after an IOC committee member reads this post...

 

[Jeff Hopkins]

If all of them pass, that's 4 life birds for me. |=)|

Same here.

And would put me at 700 in the ABA by armchair ticks. I'm at 698 now, and 697 and 698 were also armchair ticks.

God bless the splitters B

 

[Mysticete]

IOC has also added a note for Black-fronted Warbler. I will be interested to see what NACC decides for this taxon, and whether IOC acts on it. I think the Proposal does a fair job of casting doubt on the validity of this taxon

 

[Mysticete]

Kirk,

If you think that was an emotionally charged rant, you obviously haven't read his common name proposal for Ringed Storm-Petrel

http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCProp253.html

Also I believe their is some support for the Mountain Chickadee split compared to other chickadees. The genetic distance IIRC is greater between the two forms, and the mountain chickadee was also one of the suggested future splits to come out of the barcode studies. Morphologically the two are probably as distinct as Juniper vs Oak Titmouse, a related species.

 

[njlarsen]

There is a link to the bar-code study at the Opus page for the Chickadee

Niels

 

[Kirk Roth]

Kirk,

If you think that was an emotionally charged rant, you obviously haven't read his common name proposal for Ringed Storm-Petrel

http://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCProp253.html

Also I believe their is some support for the Mountain Chickadee split compared to other chickadees. The genetic distance IIRC is greater between the two forms, and the mountain chickadee was also one of the suggested future splits to come out of the barcode studies. Morphologically the two are probably as distinct as Juniper vs Oak Titmouse, a related species.

About the link above, Zimmer's response is telling. Again, I respect Mr. Howell, but there are more effective ways of getting a point across.

About the chickadees, I'll concede that my suggestion for ultrasplitting all species may have been rash compared to the case for the Mountain Chickadee. I could stand to do more research before I have an "actually intelligent" opinion, but here are my reservations so far:

- I understand that the genetic distance between baileyi and gambeli are great - likely a million years of separation. However, to the best of my knowledge, most or all of the genetic data seems based on a comparison of Los Angeles birds vs. central Arizona, not other more key areas of the range (I'd like to see Nevada and British Columbia included as well. Perhaps these studies exist and I just haven't seen them yet. But even so, I need more than genetic distance to tell me that species are species.

- A bit more compelling to me are morphological and behavioral traits. The big differences here are bill size, coloration, (both very plastic but important traits) and tail size (worthless for speciation, if you ask me). Vocalization differences seem interesting to me, but are these universal and consistent differences across the ranges of the putative taxa? I, for one, can't say. But given that we're dealing with chickadees here, vocalizations may be a difficult topic.

- Where is the ecological data? Before signing off on a new species, I'd really like to know what happens where baileyi and gambeli overlap. If they assort based on elevation, refuse to court, raise offspring with reduced fitness, etc., I'd say a good speciation event had occurred somewhere in the last million years. If the birds get along merrily, then I'd say million years be damned, these birds still think they're all the same.

I'll repeat that maybe there are studies out there which have countered all my reservations. If so, I'd like to see them and maybe they'd change my mind. But based on the little I know now about the Mountain Chickadee, I'm not yet convinced this is a good split.

Incidentally, I'll choose this forum to place the first, and probably only vote for the Rocky Mountain and Sierra Chickadees as common names. Feel free to lambast me with an emotionally charged refutation!

 

[Mysticete]

The Garthman study (IIRC) sampled large numbers (10 birds at each site) throughout the range, not just LA and central Arizona. This paper is actually just one part of a fairly large study looking at North American bird biogeography.

It's not clear to me if there are intergrade areas, and perhaps that is a valid point. Do intergrade areas exist? And if they do what happens in them? What is their relative size? Examining these points would make for a stronger proposals.

The morphological similarity of the two taxa doesn't concern me. Chickadees are conservative in plumage, and you don't see giant differences between many of the old world forms, nor between Oak vs Juniper Titmouse or Carolina vs Black-capped.

Gambel's and Bailey's both are names that have been used in the former literature. I would rather use formerly used names than invent new names. I prefer avoiding the creation of new names out of the blue whenever possible, because than you just get into matters of personal aesthetic opinion. Besides Sierra Chickadee isn't very accurate, since they just don't occur in the Sierra's. And Rocky Mountain is unnecessarily long

 

[Mysticete]

Oh and I just rechecked. Apparently only one location had haplotypes of both forms, an area near mono lake. So apparently they did mention one possible hybrid zone

 

[Kirk Roth]

Besides Sierra Chickadee isn't very accurate, since they just don't occur in the Sierra's

Sorry, I meant to say Sierra Madre, which I thought was where the type specimen for baileyae originated... but I've since been told that isn't the case. So even that isn't much more accurate!

For the record, I do have to say that if accuracy were a major concern with common names, neither "Mountain" nor "Bailey's" would be used. Not to mention ANY possessive descriptor!