[NAFEX] changing scientific nomenclature

tanis cuff tanistanis at hotmail.com
Thu Sep 5 13:55:46 EDT 2002


Ee Gad, YES the botanical scientific names are changing !  I tested seeds 
for a few years, and I had to upgrade the lab's seed herbarium because there 
were so many recent changes in crops, weeds, and range/reclamation species.

If anyone is interested, I could post some websites.

Tanis Cuff


>From: Lucky Pittman <lucky.pittman at murraystate.edu>
>Reply-To: nafex at lists.ibiblio.org
>To: nafex at lists.ibiblio.org
>Subject: [NAFEX] changing scientific nomenclature
>Date: Wed, 04 Sep 2002 08:47:46 -0500
>
>At 08:46 PM 09/03/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>>
>>One person said grounhogs are named Philohela minor and another said its 
>>Marmota monax.  I'll repeat my question...Is there more than one animal 
>>called a groundhog or woodchuck?.
>
>One species, Marmota monax.
>
>Scientific names of numerous species - animal, plant, and protists - are 
>being changed, to a large degree, based on newer DNA homology comparisons.  
>Guess taxonomists gotta have something to do.
>I wasn't aware of the groundhog/woodchuck's previous moniker - have really 
>only been paying attention to them for the last 10 years or so.  Some 
>biomedical researchers are looking at them as an animal model of human 
>disease - they have a hepatitis virus that induces hepatic 
>carcinoma(malignant tumors).
>Taxonomic changes in the microbiological field have been rampant over the 
>past 10-15 years.  Several of the commonly-encountered pathogens that I 
>deal with on a regular basis have experience name changes several times:
>Pasteurella haemolytica has become Mannheimia haemolytica
>Corynebacterium pyogenes -->Actinomyces pyogenes -->Arcanobacterium 
>pyogenes
>Treponema hyodysenteriae-->Serpula hyodysenteriae-->Serpulina 
>hyodysenteriae-->Brachyspira hyodysenteriae
>
>Name changes in the plant world have been less common(to my knowledge) - 
>are the plant taxonomists sleeping?  Several of the oak species have been 
>'renamed', most not so much on the basis of DNA comparisons as by 
>previously accepted misidentifications and acceptance of conventional names 
>based on chronologic identification(someone had previously IDed and named a 
>species, but a later name had gained more widespread usage).  Only other 
>major plant name change that I can think of, off the top of my head, is the 
>Japanese Pagodatree/Chinese Scholar Tree, Sophora japonica, which has 
>recently been changed to Styphnolobia japonica.
>
>
>Lucky Pittman
>USDA Zone 6
>Hopkinsville, KY
>
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