Viewing the Draft BioCode as a protistologist and museum employee

Abstract

The initiative resulting in a revived Draft BioCode (DBC) is highly welcomed, to a lesser extent the acontextual, ahistorical and disembodied presentation of the latter. Examples from ciliatology show that we not only face a taxonomic gap combined with a biodiversity crisis but also a “nomenclature awareness” gap. Because of many discrepancies between announced and actually deposited type material in protistology, a four-eyes principle is suggested, viz. registration of type specimen(s) should be performed or countersigned by the curator(s) of the relevant institution(s), preferably natural history museums. Pseudonomenclature may be characterized by a loose series of articles covering more or less ranks viewed from a top-down perspective, a misleading, discordant terminology (e.g. concerning diagnosis, circumscription, protologue, sorts of types) and a stability concept flawed by the absence of clear guidelines concerning “prevailing usage” or “established custom”. Bionomenclature-in-the-making resulting in a de facto unified BioCode would be enhanced by a critical mass of taxonomists defending a clear coherent plan favouring a bottom-up approach, i.e., most important are concrete specimens including their (micro)habitats, a fine-tuned, consistent terminology, and stringent, automatic rules.