Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
Issue: Vol. 10 No. 1: 31 October 2023
Type: Editorial
Published: 2023-04-27
DOI: 10.11646/megataxa.10.1.1
Page range: 1–14
Abstract views: 894
PDF downloaded: 827

A plea for preregistration in taxonomy

Corresponding author and joint first author. Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, Université Catholique de Louvain, Collège Désiré Mercier, Pl. Cardinal Mercier 14, 1348 Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
Joint first author. Research Group Zoology: Biodiversity and Toxicology, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Gebouw D, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium, Centre For Logic and Philosophy of Science, KU Leuven, Kardinaal Mercierplein 2, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Natural History Museum Vienna, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria, Department of Genetics, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, Park West, Bloemfontein 9301, South Africa, Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Vienna, Djerassiplatz 1, 1030 Vienna, Austria
Research Group Zoology: Biodiversity and Toxicology, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Gebouw D, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
Research Group Zoology: Biodiversity and Toxicology, Centre for Environmental Sciences, Hasselt University, Agoralaan Gebouw D, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, OD Taxonomy and Phylogeny, Vautierstraat 29, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Abstract

There are notoriously many different definitions of species and methods of species delimitation, forcing taxonomists to make a long range of methodological decisions in species delimitation. Because of this, there are sometimes multiple viable competing methodological paths, which could lead to different ranking (or even grouping) decisions. As a result, it is often unclear what it means for a group to be recognized as a species, the groups recognized as species are not always comparable, and some have even called ranking decisions ‘subjective’. To mitigate the problems this causes for users of taxonomy and taxonomists, we propose that taxonomists across the tree of life should start preregistering their research design and criteria for species delimitation in advance of their research. We argue that even if it were to require additional effort, preregistering taxonomic research would strongly benefit taxonomy in the long term, by increasing the transparency and usability of taxonomic outcomes and by reducing the need for ad hoc methodological decisions.

References

  1. Brown, M.J. (2020) Is science really value free and objective? From objectivity to scientific integrity. In: McCain, K. & Kampourakis, K. (Eds), What is Scientific Knowledge?. Routledge, New York, pp. 1–20.
  2. Camargo, A. & Sites, J. (2013) Species delimitation: A decade after the renaissance. In: Pavlinov, I. (Ed), The Species Problem - Ongoing Issues. InTech, Rijeka, pp. 225–247.
  3. Camerer, C.F., Dreber, A., Forsell, E., Ho, T.-H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Almenberg, J., Altmejd, A., Chan, T., Heikensten, E., Holzmeister, F., Imai, T., Isaksson, S., Nave, G., Pfeiffer, T., Razen, M. & Wu, H. (2016) Evaluating replicability of laboratory experiments in economics. Science, 351, 1433–1436. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaf0918
  4. Camerer, C.F., Dreber, A., Holzmeister, F., Ho, T.-H., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Nave, G., Nosek, B.A., Pfeiffer, T., Altmejd, A., Buttrick, N., Chan, T., Chen, Y., Forsell, E., Gampa, A., Heikensten, E., Hummer, L., Imai, T., Isaksson, S., Manfredi, D., Rose, J., Wagenmakers, E.-J. & Wu, H. (2018) Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. Nature Human Behaviour, 2, 637–644. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0399-z
  5. Conix, S. (2018) Integrative taxonomy and the operationalization of evolutionary independence. European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 8, 587–603. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13194-018-0202-z
  6. Conix, S. (2020) Enzyme classification and the entanglement of values and epistemic standards. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 84, 37–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2020.05.005
  7. Costello, M.J., May, R.M. & Stork, N.E. (2013) Can we name earth’s species before they go extinct? Science, 339, 413–416. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1230318
  8. Cuypers, V., Reydon, T.A.C. & Artois, T. (2022) Deceiving insects, deceiving taxonomists? Making theoretical sense of taxonomic disagreement in the European orchid genus Ophrys. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, 56, 125686. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ppees.2022.125686
  9. Dirnagl, U. (2020) Preregistration of exploratory research: Learning from the golden age of discovery. PLOS Biology, 18, e3000690. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000690
  10. DuBroff, R. (2018) Confirmation bias, conflicts of interest and cholesterol guidance: can we trust expert opinions? QJM: Monthly Journal of the Association of Physicians, 111, 687–689. https://doi.org/10.1093/qjmed/hcx213
  11. Wagenmakers, E.-J. & Dutilh, G. (2016) Seven selfish reasons for preregistration. APS Observer, 29.
  12. Dwan, K., Gamble, C., Williamson, P.R., Kirkham, J.J. & Reporting Bias Group (2013) Systematic review of the empirical evidence of study publication bias and outcome reporting bias – an updated review. PloS One, 8, e66844. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066844
  13. Ereshefsky, M. (2001) The Poverty of the Linnaean Hierarchy: A Philosophical Study of Biological Taxonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 316 pp. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511498459
  14. Ereshefsky, M. (2016) Species. In: Zalta, E.N. (Ed), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Available from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/species/ (12/04/2023).
  15. Faurby, S., Eiserhardt, W.L. & Svenning, J.-C. (2016) Strong effects of variation in taxonomic opinion on diversification analyses. Methods in Ecology and Evolution, 7, 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-210X.12449
  16. Fontaine, B., Perrard, A. & Bouchet, P. (2012) 21 years of shelf life between discovery and description of new species. Current Biology, 22, R943–R944. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2012.10.029
  17. Fraser, H., Parker, T., Nakagawa, S., Barnett, A. & Fidler, F. (2018) Questionable research practices in ecology and evolution. PLOS ONE, 13, e0200303. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0200303
  18. Gopalakrishna, G., Riet, G. ter, Vink, G., Stoop, I., Wicherts, J.M. & Bouter, L.M. (2022) Prevalence of questionable research practices, research misconduct and their potential explanatory factors: A survey among academic researchers in The Netherlands. PLOS ONE, 17, e0263023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0263023
  19. Heller, R., Frandsen, P., Lorenzen, E.D. & Siegismund, H.R. (2013) Are there really twice as many bovid species as we thought? Systematic Biology, 62, 490–493. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syt004
  20. Kelly, C.D. (2019) Rate and success of study replication in ecology and evolution. PeerJ, 7, e7654. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.7654
  21. Kitcher, P. (1984) Species. Philosophy of Science, 51, 308–333. https://doi.org/10.1086/289182
  22. Larsen, B.B., Miller, E.C., Rhodes, M.K. & Wiens, J.J. (2017) Inordinate fondness multiplied and redistributed: the number of species on earth and the new pie of life. The Quarterly Review of Biology, 92, 229–265. https://doi.org/10.1086/693564
  23. Luckow, M. (1995) Species concepts: Assumptions, methods, and applications. Systematic Botany, 20, 589–605. https://doi.org/10.2307/2419812
  24. Lundh, A., Lexchin, J., Mintzes, B., Schroll, J.B. & Bero, L. (2017) Industry sponsorship and research outcome. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.MR000033.pub3
  25. Marshall, B.M. & Strine, C.T. (2021) Make like a glass frog: In support of increased transparency in herpetology. Herpetological Journal, 31, 35–45. https://doi.org/10.33256/31.1.3545
  26. Mayden, R. (1997) A hierarchy of species concepts: the denouement in the saga of the species problem. In: Claridge, M., Dawah, H. & Wilson, R.A. (Eds), Species, the Units of Biodiversity, Systematics Association Special Volume Series. Chapman & Hall, London, pp. 381–424.
  27. McClure, C.J.W., Lepage, D., Dunn, L., Anderson, D.L., Schulwitz, S.E., Camacho, L., Robinson, B.W., Christidis, L., Schulenberg, T.S., Iliff, M.J., Rasmussen, P.C. & Johnson, J. (2020) Towards reconciliation of the four world bird lists: hotspots of disagreement in taxonomy of raptors. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287, 20200683. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.0683
  28. Mishler, B.D. (1999) Getting rid of species. In: R. N. Brandon (Ed), Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 307–315.
  29. Mishler, B.D. & Wilkins, J.S. (2018) The Hunting of the SnaRC: A Snarky Solution to the Species Problem. Philosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3998/ptpbio.16039257.0010.001
  30. Neate-Clegg, M.H.C., Blount, J.D. & Þekercioðlu, Ç.H. (2021) Ecological and biogeographical predictors of taxonomic discord across the world’s birds. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 30, 1258–1270. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13300
  31. Nosek, B.A., Beck, E.D., Campbell, L., Flake, J.K., Hardwicke, T.E., Mellor, D.T., van ’t Veer, A.E. & Vazire, S. (2019) Preregistration is hard, and worthwhile. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23, 815–818. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.07.009
  32. Nosek, B.A., Ebersole, C.R., DeHaven, A.C. & Mellor, D.T. (2018) The preregistration revolution. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115, 2600–2606. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708274114
  33. OPEN SCIENCE COLLABORATION (2015) Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349, aac4716. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716
  34. Parker, T.H., Forstmeier, W., Koricheva, J., Fidler, F., Hadfield, J.D., Chee, Y.E., Kelly, C.D., Gurevitch, J. & Nakagawa, S. (2016) Transparency in ecology and evolution: Real problems, real solutions. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 31, 711–719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2016.07.002
  35. Pham, M.T. & Oh, T.T. (2021) Preregistration is neither sufficient nor necessary for good science. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31, 163–176. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1209
  36. Sarafoglou, A., Kovacs, M., Bakos, B.E., Wagenmakers, E.-J. & Aczel, B. (2021) A survey on how preregistration affects the research workflow: Better science but more work. Royal Society open science, 9, 211997. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211997
  37. Schlick-Steiner, B.C., Steiner, F.M., Seifert, B., Stauffer, C., Christian, E. & Crozier, R.H. (2010) Integrative taxonomy: A multisource approach to exploring biodiversity. Annual Review of Entomology, 55, 421–438. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ento-112408-085432
  38. Simmons, J., Nelson, L. & Simonsohn, U. (2021) Pre-registration: Why and how. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 31, 151–162. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1208
  39. Simpson, G.G. (1961) Principles of Animal Taxonomy. Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 247 pp.
  40. Thomson, S.A., Thiele, K., Conix, S., Christidis, L., Costello, M.J., Hobern, D., Nikolaeva, S., Pyle, R.L., van Dijk, P.P., Weaver, H., Zachos, F.E., Zhang, Z.-Q. & Garnett, S.T. (2021) Towards a global list of accepted species II. Consequences of inadequate taxonomic list governance. Organisms Diversity & Evolution, 21, 623–630. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-021-00518-8
  41. Wheeler, Q.D. & Meier, R. (2000) Species concepts and phylogenetic theory: A debate. Columbia University Press, New York, NY, 248 pp.
  42. Wilholt, T. (2009) Bias and values in scientific research. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part, A 40, 92–101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsa.2008.12.005
  43. Willis, S.C. (2017) One species or four? Yes!...and, no. Or, arbitrary assignment of lineages to species obscures the diversification processes of Neotropical fishes. PLOS ONE, 12, e0172349. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172349
  44. Wilson, R. (1999) Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 325 pp. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/6396.001.0001
  45. Zachos, F.E. (2016) Species Concepts in Biology: Historical Development, Theoretical Foundations and Practical Relevance. Springer, Basel, 227 pp.
  46. Zachos, F.E. (2022) Critique of taxonomic reason(ing): nature’s joints in light of an ‘honest’ species concept and Kurt Hübner’s Historistic Philosophy of Science. In: Wilkins, J., Zachos, F.E. & Pavlinov, I. (Eds), Species Problems and Beyond. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL, pp. 315–342.
  47. Zachos, F.E., Christidis, L. & Garnett, S.T. (2020) Mammalian species and the twofold nature of taxonomy: a comment on Taylor et al. 2019. Mammalia, 84, 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1515/mammalia-2019-0009