About the Aging of Scientific Names

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About the Aging of Scientific Names

• Rainer Froese
• Institute of Marine Research, Kiel
• rfroese_at_ifm.uni-kiel.de

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Abstract

• Scientific names keep changing
• How fast in fish?
• Method not valid original combinations are
  plotted over years since original description
• Data from Eschmeyers Catalog of Fishes

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• A recent version of the database behind
  Eschmeyer's (Editor) 'Catalog of Fishes' was used
  to quantify such changes in fishes. The
  percentage of the over 50,000 available names
  that have changed from the originally proposed
  combination is plotted as a function of the age
  of the original description, where age is defined
  as the number of years after the original
  publication. The resulting scatter plot shows a
  steep, linear increase of changes during the
  first 50 years after publication up to about 60,
  followed by a continued, modest increase during
  the following 150 years up to about 75, and a
  decrease in changes to about 65 thereafter. A
  straight line fitted to the first 50 years after
  publication results in the equation Change()
  1.24 age (years) n 11,731 r2 0.93. About
  half of the changes in names are caused by
  species being assigned to another genus, and the
  other half are mainly species that have been
  found to belong to previously described species.
  The contribution of junior synonyms decreases
  strongly in very old publications as the
  likelihood of previously published names
  (potential senior synonyms) for a species becomes
  less. Implications for users of taxonomic books
  are discussed.

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Change in Scientific Names as a Function of Years
after Publication (1)
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Change in Scientific Names as a Function of Years
after Publication (3)
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