Butterfly Names - survey results, a question and discussion

John Shuey jshuey at tnc.org
Thu Mar 30 09:19:42 EST 2000


Felix,

To comment briefly on some of your recent questions or commentaries or  whatever.

A few items strike a discord with me and I offer some cynical comments.

First, there is no "reality" to reflect in this process.  Evolution is an ongoing
process, and we can interpret a snap-shot in time.  Biological species concepts
can be used to impose an interpretation on evolutionary chaos, as can
phylogenetic species concepts.  Both are human constructs, designed to impose our
perception of order (based on yes / no criteria) on a system that is dominated by
shades of gray (lineages in various states of evolutionary divergence).  All
classification systems attempt to slice a continuum at some point into two clean
parts - (it is a different taxon / it is not a different taxon).  Don't kid
yourself that you can arbitrate reality via a committee process.

Second, under "Special Agendas Category"  - lumping versus splitting.  As noted
above, there are legitimate philosophical differences that underlay different
approaches to classification.  The committee is stacked strongly towards lumping
(using a conservative biological species concept, interpreted based on dead
insects) and I strongly believe that one of the unwritten goals of the committee
is to IMPOSE a conservative view of taxon limits on the rest of the world.  One
particular committee member has a well known ax to grind on this issue, and I
personally don't adhere to his conservative taxon concepts (I'll explain in more
detail later).   Since its inception, my view of the committee's agenda has been
nothing more than a giant special agenda.  Arbitrary discussions made behind
closed doors by a few like-minded, well educated white men, imposing their
particular view of the world on every-one else.

And finally, again under the "Special Agendas Category".  I am a professional
end-user of taxonomy.  I work locally, regionally and occasionally
internationally on conservation projects.  Biodiversity is organized into three
levels that are often used to define conservation targets.  Assemblages of
species (community types), species themselves, and evolutionary potential within
species (= genetic diversity).  In the Western hemisphere, the vast majority of
resources are spent protecting assemblages of species at appropriate scales.  (as
an example, a new national park is being contemplated in Jamaica targeting karst
forest in the Cock-pit Country - and it coincidentally captures Papilio homerus
along with bunches of other endemic insects).

This discussion is about species/subspecies concepts and their use in
conservation. Believe it or not, the vast majority of imperiled species are not
Federally listed in the US (note that the endangered species act covers exactly
923 taxa/and or populations of taxa out of over 200,000 species estimated to
occur in the US).  Rather, these terminal taxa are assigned Global ranks, which
are then used to prioritize conservation actions by group s such as TNC,
conservation at the state level, and increasingly for federal agencies like DoD,
EPA, USDA and even US-FWS (federal "status" is becoming less important to these
agencies, which increasingly will act to conserve globally rare species on lands
they administer even if they are not legally protected).  Given that butterflies
are the only group of insects where taxonomy likely reflects geographic
evolutionary patterns (phylogenetic species concepts can be applied to most
subspecific taxa in the group), they represent the only group of insects that can
be used to gauge success of conservation for targeting "evolutionary potential"
at a national or continental scale.  In Indiana for example, there are several
butterflies that are represented by two "subspecies" (whether named or not).
Examples include Satyrodes appalachia, Satyrodes eurydice, Boloria selene, and
Hesperia metea.  We have gone out of our way to ensure that we have conserved
multiple sites capturing both evolutionary lineages of these taxa.  Such
approaches, applied internationally, would help conserve biodiversity at all
levels of organization in North America.

Thus, you can see my reluctance to see a lumping agenda become the "official list
of supposed experts".    While butterfly watchers may get a cleaner life list,
and collectors get a stable nomenclature for their collections, patterns of
biodiversity can be obscured to the point that we loose additional lineages.

The bottom line is this.  When I first heard about this committee and the
composition of it's members, I knew that I would simply ignore the product. It
was a NABA product and has little if any impact on me professionally.  However,
if the Lep Soc ever moves to adopt an "Official list" of any type,  I almost
certainly will try my best to correct this poor decision.  If unsuccessful, The
Lep Soc would move into the category of Societies that have nothing to offer
practicing conservation biologists.  I note that the Entomological Soc. America
move into that category over over 15 years ago, and I have not been a member
since the mid 1980's.

Sadly, extinction is forever, while stable taxonomy is a metal construct, subject
to change based on mental whims.
--
John Shuey, Ph.D.
Director of Conservation Science
Indiana Office of The Nature Conservancy

phone:  317-923-7547
fax:  317-923-7582
email:  Jshuey at tnc.org



Felix.Sperling at ualberta.ca wrote:

> Thank you to all the people who took the trouble to reply to my
> question of two days ago! It wasn't always clear which category to
> enumerate people in (including Wanda Dameron's note that she has
> now posted on Leps-l), but I have made my best guess based on the
> accompanying comments.
>
> If you can bear with me through another long posting, I'd also like to
> ask you another question. This one concerns what you think would be the
> best starting point for a committee that is intended to "reduce the
> confusing welter of names", as the announcement of the NABA committee
> put it. As before, in this posting I speak only for myself.
>
> To spare those who feel they know enough about the issues and don't
> have the time to go through my posting, I've put my question here.
> (please send responses to me at  felix.sperling at ualberta.ca )
> ...............................................
>
> At this point in time, which do you think is the better starting point
> to build on by a committee dedicated to reducing the confusing welter
> of names for North American butterflies?
>
> a. NABA First Edition (1995)
> b. combined list of Opler and Lafontaine, as in their 1998 and 1999 books
> ..........................................................
>
> Now for the summary of responses to my question as to whether I
> should stay with or abandon the existing independent committee:
> A total of 33 people responded, of which 28 said "hang in there".
> These 28 included 10 who are Lep Soc members only, 12 who are
> members of both NABA and Lep Soc, and 6 who were neither (but who
> generally noted that they were part of a society like ATL or Lorquin's).
> For the 5 people who said "cut your losses", 3 are only Lep Soccers
> and 2 are in both NABA and Lep Soc. Most of these 5 added comments
> like "it's hopeless" and the rest did not comment. As far as I could
> determine, no one was only a NABA member.
>
> Admittedly, any survey based on self selection will have some biases.
> Also my question had several angles to it and could be taken
> as applying only to me or to the whole committee that I am part of.
> But it looks to me like there is a healthy ratio of people who
> would rather have my work and/or the committee continue than not.
> (Of course the fact that hundreds of Leps-l members didn't say anything
> can be interpreted any way you want).
>
> So - where to go from here? I agree with those who commented that
> it sure would be nice if people could just get along and sort things
> out. However at this point, after having watched the recalcitrance
> of the primary players get more entrenched over the last few months,
> I don't think that compromise is realistic. In fact, our plan to
> meet this spring has now been abandoned since most of our members believe
> that there was no point in convening a special meeting once the main
> person who requested that we urgently consider his list of objections
> has set up an alternate committee. On the other hand, and
> especially after reading the comments that came with the survey
> responses, I am reluctant to let go of the concept of a single names
> committee either. Although I strongly support the free-for-all of primary
> publications, I just as strongly believe that we need a mechanism
> at another level that provides guidance and stability for the rapidly
> expanding numbers of people who simply want to use butterfly scientific
> or common names.
>
> As a result, I'd like to try an experiment in participatory taxonomy.
> I initially thought that it might prove interesting to present the
> pros and cons for a "species of the month" discussion. My fellow
> committee members were not opposed to the concept when I mentioned
> it, but they did not feel that they would have the time to participate
> in such a public discussion. However, I think that I should first focus
> on an even more basic issue, which is the question of what the
> best starting point is for any committee that wishes to "reduce the
> confusing welter of names".
>
> In my previous email posting of two days ago, I gave some of the reasons
> why I chose to go along with the composite list that had already been worked
> out by Opler and Lafontaine. That list was by that point essentially a
> done deal, and producing a third list was not going to reduce the
> confusion. It was also reasonable for me to expect that revisiting the
> taxonomic names on the list was not going to give a very different list,
> considering that two of our five members were the ones who had produced
> the list (and were asked by Jeffrey Glassberg to be members of the
> committee). Finally, even though I thought that there were some names in
> the list that would not bear the test of time, the total list was definitely
> an increment better than the NABA First Edition list. Remember that the
> only real deliberations of the original NABA names committee concerned
> which common/English name to use, and not the actual species
> limits. This committee deferred decisions on species limits to the
> scientific names in the previously published books by Opler and Scott,
> and an unpublished list of another committee member, Bob Robbins.
>
> Thus the "starting point" list that our committee eventually agreed on
> was in every way, except by our formal affiliation, a successor to the
> the NABA First Edition list. It was produced by the same people and by
> the same process. It also gave exactly what Glassberg had asked us
> to give him, which was a list that he could use for the next round of
> NABA discussions about common names without needing to get into the
> species limits discussions that are essential to scientific names.
> Most importantly, it gave Glassberg a list
> that he could work with and not have his publication schedule held
> up. Our list was made available to Glassberg in mid 1998, in plenty of
> time for him to use in his book preparations and a revised NABA common
> names list. It was also made available for dissemination on
> websites like the USGS website for which Opler is the main advisor, and
> the "Butterfly Net International" website maintained at Oregon State
> by Andy Brower (http://www.ent.orst.edu/bnet/north.htm). The Oregon
> State website records the list as having been received for posting on
> July 6th 1998.
>
> The next phase of our committee was the more time-consuming step of
> deliberately revisiting particular names on request, and examining newly
> published names. We envisioned the next phase as one that would allow our
> committee to stay on top of the names as they came along. It would also
> allow us to provide, at relatively short notice, a more carefully worked
> list than if we had to deal with 5-10 years worth of taxonomic publications
> such as had accumulated since the scientific names were reviewed to produce
> the basis for the NABA First Edition list. Throughout this phase, I
> believe that none of us knew until just a few weeks before our meeting in
> October 1999, one year after our list was made available to him, that
> Glassberg considered our working list as unacceptable.
>
> At this point, I can think of four general kinds of reasons why
> anyone should wish to produce another North American butterfly names
> species list at this point.
>
> The first reason is that the person believes it will promote nomenclatural
> stability, with consequent positive ripple effects for butterfly
> watching by neophytes and even conservation awareness. I think this is a
> very worthy reason, and it is the basis for my own involvement in one
> of the committees. The main problem is that I simply can't see how having
> a second committee and an independent list for NABA, simply for the sake
> of having it under the control of NABA, can help in this regard. In fact,
> I think it is fair to ask whether it is NABA as a whole or the NABA
> president that wishes such as list. Has the NABA membership or even
> its executive ever had a vote on what the current mandate is for their
> "Common Names Committee"? In the latest correspondence and publications
> that I have for NABA, Paul Opler and Bob Robbins are listed as vice
> presidents and directors. We know from his Leps-l posting yesterday
> that another director, Fred Heath, "personally would have allowed Paul's
> group to continue unchallenged". If the NABA president, Jeffrey Glassberg,
> is free to keep reconstituting committees until they give him the desired
> result, without going back to the executive for approval, how can this
> kind of one-man rule lead to greater nomenclatural stability?
> Please note that I am a NABA member myself, and I am not challenging the
> right of the founding president to run NABA as he wishes. But I am
> anticipating the claim that the official NABA committee is necessarily
> more stable or valid than an independent committee of professional
> butterfly specialists. I don't believe it is.
>
> The second positive reason for producing another names list is that
> it will be a better list, at least in the sense of better reflecting
> our current understanding of reality. This is certainly the reason why
> the NABA First Edition needed to have an accompanying reevaluation of
> the scientific names before it was realistic to produce a second edition.
> We are told that the current NABA committee "will only consider
> published data that is presented in a form that a knowledgeable reader
> can independently assess in the paper at hand" and "we will only make
> a change in the scientific name or status of any taxon on this list if
> the published evidence presents a clear and compelling case for change".
> That sounds very attractive to me in principle, but in practice it has proven
> to be enormously difficult to carry out without intensive discussion
> and careful training in interpreting such publications. Indeed, if there
> is one thing that I wish our committee had more consistently erred on
> the side of, it is that we had more consistently stuck to the published
> evidence alone, rather than interpreting and adding to that evidence
> through our own experience. But I feel it would have been fruitless to
> treat each biological species problem like a case in a court of law. As a
> person with a peripheral interest in forensic entomology, I can say that
> there is a huge difference between law and science with respect to what
> constitutes concepts like "evidence" or "proof". Nonetheless, I
> sincerely wish this committee well if that is indeed what each of the
> members ends up doing. I have some concerns, however. The chair of
> that committee, Glassberg, is on record as saying that "in fact, there
> is no right thing, as you can see, because all these people disagree,
> intelligent people" (Toronto Globe and Mail, Feb 14th, 2000). If there
> is no right thing, then there is little sense in striving to achieve it.
>
> The third general reason for redoing taxonomic names has a more negative
> connotation - it the achievement of some other agenda. It is obvious
> that decisions to give species status to particular populations can
> be fraught with political and economic consequences. The most common
> case nowadays must be the description of a marginally different population
> as a new species in order to give it, or its associated biota, better
> protection under endangered species legislation. But that is a dangerous
> game that can bring a whole conservation effort into disrepute. I imagine
> that sharp lawyers employed by land developers will eventually be sniffing
> around some of the more egregious cases that are out there. A committee
> that is openly dedicated to conservation causes will have to be especially
> careful to tread the fine line between good science and betraying their
> cause. Another and more specific complicating issue to consider under
> the general heading of "other agendas" is the fact that Opler and
> Glassberg have competing and highly popular books. A whole society
> and butterfly count system that is channeled by its president into using
> a newly derived naming system of one of the books rather than the other
> cannot help giving an extra boost to that book.
>
> The forth general reason why someone might come up with a new name or
> set of names is ego. Taxonomy is rife with the problem of people trying to
> leave monuments to themselves. I would argue that, like greed in capitalism,
> ego in taxonomy can be a positive driving factor if it is at a moderate
> level. The problem with butterflies in temperate regions is that there is
> probably more reason to lump than to split in any given case. Speaking as
> a person who has been known to commit lumping (even though I have also
> named new species and subspecies), I know it is a sure way to incur
> the wrath of life listers. I hope that the NABA names committee would
> find ways to strike a balance between recognizing biological reality
> versus the inexorable pressure to split species for well known
> faunas. In fact, this brings me back to the issue I raised at the end
> of the previous paragraph. Another aspect of ego is whether you have
> the most, best, or biggest of something. Every author
> I have ever known has been inordinately proud of the total sales or impact
> of their book, and I can say firmly that both Glassberg and Opler are
> among them. I cannot shake the sense that thousands of new butterfly watchers
> will be needlessly confused by butterfly names in part because they
> happened to step into a crossfire of "mine is bigger than yours".
>
> But now I need to get back to the basic problem. I have presented my view of
> why it would do more harm than good to produce a formal NABA
> butterfly names list that tries to redo the work that Opler and
> Lafontaine have already done.
> I have also tried to achieve two things: 1) giving people who want to know
> what all this names list controversy is about a better sense of the
> complexities, and 2) eliciting some discussion, particularly with
> members of
> the NABA names committee who I know are monitoring Leps-l. I agree with their
> commitment "to a completely open process", and I am taking this opportunity
> to make our own committee more open as well.
>
> Felix Sperling





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