|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
The World
Catalogue: Problems, Format and Progress Background - The project was first announced
at the First International Symposium on Buprestidae held in Visegrad,
Hungary, September 1995 The compilation of a world catalogue for any taxon as large as the Buprestidae most certainly involves a number of problems that must be solved prior to completion. The project was originally envisioned as a group effort and already there are substantial contributions and offers of support from colleagues in Europe, South Africa, Australia and North America. The correction of many errors from the Obenberger fascicles of the Junk and Schenkling Coleopterorum Catalogus (Obenberger 1926, 1930, 1934a, 1934b, 1936, 1937) and the listing of all new taxa and synonyms proposed since 1926 is the major goal of this catalogue. Second will be tracing the often dynamic movement of a number of taxa as newer higher levels have expanded and contracted. There is some expected inconsistency that cannot be overcome due to the separate approaches taken by workers studying subjects from different regions. To complete this work, the planned compilation of a large, yet perhaps impossible-to-complete, bibliography should allow an additional level of utility from the last catalogue by Obenberger. It is probably most likely that one of the most important features of a catalogue is to allow a complete taxonomic history to be traced for all taxa treated. This means that the listing for any taxon should start with the original description and combination and proceed through all subsequent works that discussed it in a systematic context. Within this history, there should be reference to all previous catalogues that will allow the user(s) to follow the earlier combinations and the dynamics of the systematic philosophy of past workers and how such affected each of the listed taxa. Therefore, among the important previous catalogues that I hope to fully reference are Barr (1971), Blackwelder (1944, 1957), Chamberlin (1926), Gemminger & von Harold (1869), Kerremans (1892), the Leng catalogue (Leng 1920, Leng & Mutchler 1927, 1933, Blackwelder 1939, Blackwelder & Blackwelder 1948), Saunders (1871), Sturm (1843) , Winkler (1932) and of course the Obenberger catalogue. It will also be of utmost importance to reference the larger monographs on the family, especially Kerremans fascicles of Genera Insectorum (1902, 1903), Monographie des buprestides (1904-1914) and the variously authored fascicles by Laporte and Gory (Laporte & Gory 1835) . Discussions with those attending this conference will allow a broader
idea of what our fraternity will find most utilitarian and help to produce
the best final product. Initially, the catalogue will be published
as a traditional hard copy, however the publisher plans to issue annual
updates and eventually the catalogue will be available electronically.
To that end, I have committed to keep as current as possible to produce
the annual update and will continually maintain a dynamic set of computer
files from which the master annual updates will be produced. Due
to this need, it is imperative that as many as possible make their work
known to me so that I do not have to rely on various abstract services
and the sometimes incomplete yearly fascicles of the Zoological Record.
Problems Mistakes and Inconsistencies in Obenberger’s Catalogue That there are mistakes in a work the scope of the Obenberger catalogue is not surprising from earlier times of card files and hand typesetting. There also seems to be some slight evolution of style over the six fascicles but this might rather come from the change of printers or editorial inconsistencies than anything that Obenberger might have done himself. The major mistakes that I’ve encountered are with the references as some are clearly erroneous, probably caused by the typing when a previous line or references was duplicated. There is some inconsistency with abbreviations, mainly pertaining to author names and for this reason I have chosen to not abbreviate any author names. Although for most of us, it wouldn’t be hard to know that Kerr. = Kerremans and Obenb. = Obenberger, but it really doesn’t extend the size of the work significantly and completely removes the possibility of mistake to present all names in full. The other inconsistency was in the abbreviated style of references presented within the body of that catalogue. This will be eliminated with the presentation of a full bibliography which will include full journal names and titles. Placement: Then & Now and Which System to Follow One of the more controversial features will be my choice of a classification system. In Visegrad I said that I would try to not inflict my opinion except in cases where no consensus was available. Unfortunately, subsequent communication with various colleagues (via letters and eMail) has convinced me that I must make certain decisions here, whether or not they are fully supported. I’m sure that we’ll all agree that the higher classification of the family is still in flux, currently fairly dynamic and that it will be many years before the entire range of character suites needed to be studied will be available to present a holistic system that will win wide support. Therefore the catalogue will have an introductory chapter on higher classification philosophy where I will spell out the order of the higher levels and my reasons. I will basically use the same listing and order I used in my (1985) catalogue of higher taxa, although new things will be incorporated. I should say that I am generally in favour of the system proposed by Holynski (1993) reducing the number of subfamilies, and separating the family into more tribes and subtribes. Thereafter, we will all need to remember that this project will not be out-of-date with the production of printed copies and that new changes will be incorporated into subsequent volumes. Lastly, when in doubt of where to find any particular taxon, a fully integrated index will be there to locate the appropriate page. Not all will be happy That there will be some dissent is to be expected, as this seems to be one of the most widely shared contemporary human qualities. I have already replied to some who try to inflict their opinions on my proposals that I will consider all published points of view, whether it is an unsupported statement of suspicion or a large, detailed phylogenetic analysis. However, if you feel it important to find fault with someone else’s work and negate the utility of the catalogue because I have followed a publication or philosophy that you do not support, until you present evidence to the contrary or publish data that confirms your opinion, I will not be able to incorporate each and every little whim. Verification from literature not available There will be disputes about publication dates and priority and there will be and currently are a number of references that I cannot see or verify. While the holdings of the Transvaal Museum library are very good in some areas, there are weaknesses in our coverage for other major faunal regions. This is where I’ll continue to need your help in locating original publications, providing me with correct dates, titles, full journal names, volumes, and page numbers. Several have already been very helpful with those references that I couldn’t locate here. Synonymy of unrevised groups There will be some problems with inconsistency from the perspective
of groups or taxa not recently studied or revised. I will generally
try to incorporate the most recent listings or revisions in preparing the
catalogue. In the case of the listing of infrasubspecific names,
the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature is quite clear about
how these should be dealt with, which can be elevated or ignored and which
dates to apply in making these decisions. However, only a few recent
studies have applied the concept of infrasubspecific taxa and listing them
as unavailable names (e.g Holm & Gussmann 1992). Applying the
same rules, recommendations and logic from the 1985 ICZN would allow many
names originally proposed as variety or aberration to be considered unavailable.
My question is to whether the catalogue is the place to list these names
as unavailable or whether I should list them in their current status and
await the first revisor to make such listings. It really seems straight-forward,
according to the rules, the names are clearly unavailable if used in an
infrasubspecific context beyond a particular date and if listed in the
catalogue then they theoretically never need to be listed again.
Maybe this will just add another couple of months to preparing the catalogue!
Format The format is actually better explained by the following examples. Fundamentally it will be simplified from that of Obenberger’s by eliminating some of the reference data which will be found in the large bibliography. In some ways the format will be similar (when something works, use it!) as the valid taxa (family through subspecies) will be in boldface. The invalid taxa (synonyms and unavailable names) will be in italics. The text references will be shortened to the contemporary standard of author, date and page number, with sequential letters used for multiple publications in one year by the same author (e.g. 1934a, 1934b, etc.). The original and historical combinations of each taxon will be given after the author/date reference in parentheses. The distribution comments will be restricted to a three letter abbreviation for biogeographical province following conventional parameters, the country or countries and state or province. In the case of taxa known only from the original type locality or those that have only a place name recorded in Obenberger’s catalogue or in the original description, the same data will be repeated. The biogeographical provinces will be graphically presented, perhaps as maps at the front of the work, showing the outlines of each region and the abbreviation for easy reference. It was suggested that I should borrow the biogeographic system used by botanists outlining the major regions, since phytophagous insects should belong to same general groupings and regions. The taxa will be presented in groups no less in rank than the genus. Information on subgenera, species groups, etc. will be grouped below the generic synonymy for easy reference. Following the reference listing(s) for each taxon, there will be square bracketed information regarding membership in specific subgenera, superspecies or “circles” (sensu Ho?y?ski 1992), or species groups, for those taxa that have such defined. While the term “circle” (see comments Bellamy & Williams 1995) may coincide with that of “superspecies” already exisiting (e.g. usage in Bellamy 1987), I will list what I find in the literature and not propose to reinvent the wheel at every bend. In larger taxa where these subgeneric units are defined for only one region, those not placed in such units will have nothing recorded. An example of this would be in the large genus Acmaeodera Eschscholtz where the Palaearctic and Ethiopian faunas are well studied and variously subdivided into both subgenera and species groups. To the contrary is the New World fauna where no subdivision is yet apparent nor defined. There will be no redundant listings of nominate subgenera or subspecies unless there are specific references only to these taxa. I see no point in listing subspecies twice in the alphabetical lists when, by definition, synonyms of nominate subspecies are also synonyms of the species. I have decided that there should be no geographical subdivision of the catalogue, so large taxa will be listed together, the species in alphabetical order. In addition, for what I feel will yield the maximum utility, will be the alphabetical listing in italics of all names below the species rank, each with a reference to their current placement. This will then ease the search, especially in large taxa, to see if the name you might wish to use for a new species has ever been used before in this combination. There have been some suggestions regarding questions about how broad to make the catalogue. Firstly, this will be a taxonomic work, intended to help those engaged in such work on the family. There will be an introductory section or chapter on biology, but at first I will refrain from adding repetative specific references. Basic biological information and reference to larval descriptions will be added where known. With the planned on-going nature of this perpetual work, the eventual addition of complete biological information can be accomplished. In addition, it has been suggested that the listing of type localities and type specimen depository should be listed too, but so much of the basic accumulation of such information is needed and would delay the completion of this first edition for another few years. I will not plan to repeat the multi-paged lists found in Obenberger’s catalogue for such taxa as Agrilus viridis (1936, pp. 1056-1068). An example of the format is available as a PDF
of the entire catalogue data for the family Schizopodidae. Progress At this point, there is much progress to report. Nearly the entire Obenberger catalogue has been entered, at least the basic list of taxa, authors and reference abbreviations. The bibliography was the focus of early concentration, so that the more prolific authors (i.e. Obenberger, Théry, and Kerremans) would have a set reference list from which all contributors could reference their groups and eliminate my eventually having to corroborate many separate listings (i.e. Théry 1935b is the same for all of us). Many have already been quite helpful in answering questions about certain references; others that have received earlier versions of the bibliography have sent lists of references that I had not incorporated to those versions and others have helped with accuracy and orthography. There will be a complete synthesis of the modern literature, i.e. all published works since the first fascicle of Obenberger’s catalogue (1926). I am correcting the mistakes and inconsistencies from Obenberger’s catalogue as I discover them and as I can verify the corrections. Obviously the “find and replace” command on modern text editors eliminates hours of careful proof-reading and even the simplest changes can be done in virtually no time. With the Obenberger catalogue available as the starting point, it is easy to refer to the earlier catalogues referred to above for correct reference to each work’s listing of page numbers and earlier combinations. It will also be important to include, where known and possible, all manuscript or “in litt.” names along with the “in coll.” names. While these names are all nomina nuda and unavailable, it is important to those who pursue buprestid systematics to be aware of these names that never were. I have already received actual or promised electronic contributions from several colleagues that will eliminate substantial retyping by me. From Sybille Gussmann, I have already incorporated the entire listings for African Sternocera and southern African Julodis; there will be some inconsistency between these sections and these genera from other biogeographical regions, but that cannot be helped unless someone wants to quickly revise them! Mark Volkovitsh has provided listing for the entire of the Palaearctic Acmaeoderini with promises to send the data on the Oriental fauna soon. Svata Bílý and Mark Kafka have promised to provide me with the complete listings for Anthaxia (sensu lato) and Shelley Barker has promised to send the data for Castiarina following the publication of his monograph. Mark Volkovitsh and Edo Jendek have promised that they will collaborate to produce a listing of all Russian literature. Finally I would like to make another plea to all buprestid workers,
old and young, no matter the region, country or language you are working
in. I need to receive your papers, originals or photocopies and I
need to know the complete names of the journals you publish in. If
I have a substantial increase in the number of reprints I receive, I will
have much less searching through the general literature and more time to
enter data. I am certain that all will agree that we want this catalogue
to be as complete and thorough as possible.
Acknowledgements To those who have already sent data or those who have promised to help, I want to thank you: Shelley Barker, Svata Bílý, Sybille Gussmann, Edo Jendek, Mark Kafka, Hans Mühle, Gayle Nelson, Mark Volkovitsh, and Rick Westcott. For the rest who participated in the discussion in Visegrad and contributed their ideas and support to this project, your assistance is also appreciated. |
||||||||||||||||
References BARR, W. F., 1971. In: M. H. HATCH. Family Buprestidae, Beetles of
the Pacific Northwest, Part 5: 55-89.
|
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
World of Jewel Beetles - home |