Evaluating nomina of the phylum Ciliophora: examples for increasing work load of serious taxonomists

Abstract

Thirteen examples mainly taken from ciliatology illustrate the increasing work load of serious taxonomists interested in the reliability of nomenclatural information and trying to be Code-compliant. Weaknesses of the “Amendment” of five articles to expand methods of publication of the Code resulted in the increasing vagueness of dating a nomen (and/or even authorship). The statuses of periodicals with two ISSNs (Print and Online), online-only versions not being or incompletely registered in Zoobank and Corrigenda are often questionable. It is necessary to check in detail the nomenclatural availability of novelties included in them. The Zoobank registration of works published on ciliates is of little help in this respect. There was also retrieval inefficiency and bias of the search engine Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) tested for a subset of ciliate nomina (nearly 350 nomina and/or spellings) involved in unavailability, mainly objective synonymy and homonymy. The results clearly indicate that the taxonomic status is privileged and nomenclatural revisionary work, which often is spread over three or more decades, is very fragmentarily recognised. Moreover, the main subcategories of synonymy (including alloneonymy) and the correctness of information on senior and junior homonyms are disregarded. Recent monographies are not adequately represented in online databases and websites, forcing genuine taxonomists (after the promulgation of the revisionary work) to check a second time and often to correct each single record in the internet.