Dear Nancy, and all,
Thanks for raising this. I would like to make clear that criticisms of my annotations on WoRMS will be taken on board. I’ve been doing it for six years and it is highly likely I’ve got it wrong in places, or there’s some aspect I didn’t consider at the time that changes the outcome. If there are differing interpretations or opinions I will try to represent them. Sometimes the limitations of the way WoRMS formally handles taxa means full nuances can’t be represented – we can always add an explanatory note if you find one of those.
In the case of this authorship, yes, we do differ in our interpretation. My view is unchanged. Lopez-Jamar 1989 is a weak paper, and the situation is extremely unfortunate – he didn’t know what he was doing, but he’s the sole author of Aonidella dayi. People using Aonidella can adopt Nancy’s usage if they think I’m wrong. But I don’t think I am J
The relevant code articles were rewritten quite a bit around the time of the Maciolek 2000 article which used the expired 1985 code. It is only the current 4th ed code version that applies, but even looking back I cannot go along with a suggested authorship of Maciolek in Lopez-Jamar as justifiable using the wording of 1985 Art 50a. Not that it matters now. Art 50.1.1 now requires that the additional in-text author is ALONE responsible for everything except publication for authorship of X in Y to apply. If Y contributed significantly then Y is the only author. In this case all the text is written by Lopez-Jamar = Y.
It often comes up that author X’s unpublished work was used mistakenly or deliberately in part by author Y and therefore it’s said that X in Y is the fairest representation of the history. But including a name authorship is not about credit or about reflecting the history of the concept; it’s for the purpose of tracking where the name was Code-published by author Y as an original combination so that the information on it can be found and disambiguated from other usages, including homonyms.
If author X’s full description appears verbatim quoted in author Y the situation is simple and totally different from Aonidella - X in Y does apply. Also sometimes we get the situation that the article is by Y and X, and there is a definite statement published in the article that name authorship is only by X. This is somewhat lengthy to deal with (X in Y & X, or worse when there are more names) but otherwise not a problem. But I ask – is this really necessary, because we’re getting into micro-credit assignment again, and making these names very clunky to cite in text flow?
All situations must be considered case by case. The work written by Welter-Schultes gives a lot of help on this in his section 8.2.1 “How to determine who is the author”. But again, while he has great experience, no doubt there will be opinions differing from his. Anyway copies are available at: http://www.gbif.org/orc/?doc_id=2784
Cheers,
Geoff
From: Nancy Maciolek [mailto:njmaciolek from gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, 22 October 2015 7:11 a.m.
To: Reuscher, Michael <Michael.Reuscher from tamucc.edu>; Geoff Read <Geoffrey.Read from niwa.co.nz>
Cc: annelida from net.bio.net <annelida from magpie.bio.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: [Annelida] Re: A nomen nudum is ...
Dear Michael, Geoff, and all,
Michaels's question is one that is of particular relevance to me, and you will see that Geoff and I do not agree on the answer.
In my dissertation on Spionidae (1983), I described a new genus, Aonidella, and a new species, Aonidella dayi. I did not otherwise publish the names at the time. My dissertation was apparently read by Eduardo Lopez-Jamar, who used the names in his 1989 paper (Primera cita para el litoral de la Peninsula Iberica del genero Aonidella (Polychaeta: Spionidae), con una redescription de la espece Aonidella dayi Maciolek 1983. Bol. Inst. Esp. Oceanogr. 5:107-110). Lopez-Jamar reported the species as "Aonidella dayi Maciolek, 1983" which we would all agree is not correct but does acknowledge my dissertation as the basis for the validity of both the genus and species. I contacted Claus Nielsen, a Commissioner of the ICZN. He and P. Tubbs cited the 1985 Code, Article 50a, as the basis for citing the genus and species as "Maciolek in Lopez-Jamar, 1989". I followed their advice when I published on the genus in 2000 and acknowledged their input.
If you look at the WoRMS database, you will see that the editor (I presume Geoff) lists the author of both genus and species as "Lopez-Jamar, 1989" with the following note on the genus: "The dilemma here is that the author is not Maciolek, who did not publish relevant content from her thesis (where the name was initiated) until 2000. Clearly López-Jamar was only referencing her earlier work rather than including her diagnostic (1983) content, so the genus authorship formulation of Maciolek in López-Jamar as used by Maciolek (2000) cannot be correct."
He (Geoff) also included the following note for the species A. dayi : According to Maciolek (2000) the description of López-Jamar, 1989 is based on and extending her unpublished 1983 thesis description. However, López-Jamar appears to be describing his own material from Golfo de Cadiz, and thus the authorship cannot be Maciolek in López-Jamar. The circumstance is undesirable and may require further resolution (for example to determine what is the type material, if it exists). Nevertheless Maciolek (2000) subsequently included Mediterranean and Canary Islands material in her further description as well as material from offshore North America Atlantic, although not the López-Jamar type material.
Clearly, Geoff and I differ on the interpretation of Article 50a (now Article 50.1.1), but I think the advice of two Commissioners is sufficient to resolve the issue.
cheers,
Nancy
Nancy J. Maciolek
