TY  - JOUR
A1  - Conix, Stijn
A1  - Cuypers, Vincent
A1  - Pence, Charles H.
T1  - Measuring and explaining disagreement in bird taxonomy
T2  - European journal of taxonomy
N2  - Species lists play an important role in biology and practical domains like conservation, legislation, biosecurity and trade regulation. However, their effective use by non-specialist scientific and societal users is sometimes hindered by disagreements between competing lists. While it is well-known that such disagreements exist, it remains unclear how prevalent they are, what their nature is, and what causes them. In this study, we argue that these questions should be investigated using methods based on taxon concept rather than methods based on Linnaean names, and use such a concept-based method to quantify disagreement about bird classification and investigate its relation to research effort. We found that there was disagreement about 38% of all groups of birds recognized as a species, more than three times as much as indicated by previous measures. Disagreement about the delimitation of bird groups was the most common kind of conflict, outnumbering disagreement about nomenclature and disagreement about rank. While high levels of conflict about rank were associated with lower levels of research effort, this was not the case for conflict about the delimitation of bird groups. This suggests that taxonomic disagreement cannot be resolved simply by increasing research effort.
T3  - European journal of taxonomy  : EJT - 943:288-307 
KW  - taxonomic disagreement
KW  - taxonomic disorder
KW  - species lists
KW  - bird lists
KW  - taxonomic conflict
Y1  - 2024
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/74476
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-744761
SN  - 2118-9773
VL  - 2024
IS  - 943
SP  - 288
EP  - 307
PB  - Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle
CY  - Paris
ER  -