Nomenclature semantics

[Sharyn Fernandez]

Another (and last ?) futher comment and opinion

Shuey's comment
>', patterns of biodiversity can be obscured to the point that we loose
>additional lineages.'<
---> my concern,too.

Who said this?:
> The polarization of the people from NABA and Lep Soc is a perceived issue
>that doesn't seem to be going away.<
---> I used to be a secretary for General Operations within a bank. We had
a "Liaison" Section ; it's basic function was to integrate incoming
information, mainly from companies and government, into operations (for
processing stock & bond dividends and interest).
I think in NABA's case, ie Glassberg has come along to fill a need that
Xerces and Lep Soc didn't want to and couldn't do 'justice to',i.e. relate
to the "common man", who so greatly wanted to find out a little more about
the butterflies they were seeing. IN particular, many members of Lep. Soc
were either, 'back yard gardeners' basically, ( I mean that in the most
complimentary way - that is, people wanting to understand the interaction
of plants and insects -  I love the concept of "butterfly sanctuaries" and
supporting non-use of pesticides (... I'm thinking "small scale"
Paul!(?)...) if only for the purpose of learning to identify "food chains",
if you will, close up, for one reason. But also those who enjoy going out
on a hike basically, and being able to identify things they see. This
started with native plant people (who, at least use botanic names as well),
and Auduboners (who mainly deal in common names, but are taken aback when
you ask them to know scientific names, but who otherwise would be glad for
the most part to do "a count", esp. since they already have binoculars...



But back to my main thought...  I just think there is a need for a "liason
committee"  to translate "journaleze" into a useable list for the
non-academic.

AND,I LIKE HAVING THE CONTROVERSY INCLUDED in the field guides. This goes
beyond what Audubon does - just a 'tick list '... sorry 'life listers'...
you're missing the best part , ie the "natural history" of an organism,
even if it's just P. rapae... what's happening with it in terms of other
organisms,etc. in nature?

And FINALLY, since getting Opler's Peterson Guide to West. B'flies, I NOW
APPRECIATE (in the conservationist sense) the replacement of "Common
Checkerspot" for "Variable Checkerspot" - was that YOU, Dr. O. who thought
of that? I thought it was Glassberg. At anyrate, now I see it puts more
emphasis on the subspecies level, which in my book is a good thing!
ANYWAY... I also  hope Felix will put in his genotype studies and how that
impacts classification. This is re-aligning a lot of bird information. (Is
this "blood" DNA, Felix?).

I hope that Lep Soc. will be more open to working with the NABA group;
maybe Glassberg whould have gone back to Lep. Soc., I just wish he would
let his membership vote on more issues.

I also hope  that lists will be based on journal publications. I know these
publications also get challenged, but only (I tho't) when significant
evidence has been presented.That's just the process and it will hopefully
just be "unofficially revised" every year or everyother year, and
'officially' revised every 10 years, maybe....

Also - Whatever happend to Emmel, Emmel, and Matoon's (Stanford Press
publisher) book? Was that just "California" butterflies? or North American?

I'm also responding to C Guupy's thot's under separate "cover"...


Sharyn Fernandez, Concord CA
37deg..57 min N; 121 deg, 52 min. W
Butterflies & Botany
the BUG stops here!