My last batch of papers linked me to a vibrant debate that took place in the literature from 2017-2018, resulting in a working group, a journal article collection, and a PNAS Perspective (sounds a lot like the Bee Monitoring RCN!) on the need for a single global list of species. I was familiar with one of these papers (Thomson et al. 2018), but not the full context in which it was produced, and this has been a fascinating bunch of reading. It admittedly is the opposite take on the issue from the last batch of papers, which seemed to be against the centralization of nomenclature. But I am really into reading both sides and orienting to all the nuance that underlies how species names can be represented in occurrence data and conservation applications. Here’s what I have been reading lately:
Garnett, Stephen T., and Les Christidis. 2017. “Taxonomy Anarchy Hampers Conservation.” Nature 546 (7656): 25–27. https://doi.org/10.1038/546025a.
Thomson, Scott A., Richard L. Pyle, Shane T. Ahyong, et al. 2018. “Taxonomy Based on Science Is Necessary for Global Conservation.” PLOS Biology 16 (3): e2005075. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005075.
Garnett, Stephen Thomas, and Les Christidis. 2018. “Science-Based Taxonomy Still Needs Better Governance: Response to Thomson et Al.” PLOS Biology 16 (3): e2005249. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2005249.
Garnett, Stephen T., Les Christidis, Stijn Conix, et al. 2020. “Principles for Creating a Single Authoritative List of the World’s Species.” PLOS Biology 18 (7): e3000736. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000736.
Lien, Aaron M., Olaf Banki, Saroj K. Barik, et al. 2023. “Widespread Support for a Global Species List with a Formal Governance System.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120 (45): e2306899120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2306899120.
I’d like to read the six articles in the collection linked above, too; then, I plan to read a couple back and forths in the literature on this issue specific to WoRMS. I feel like something is churning on all this reading, but I’m not sure what that is yet…