Grey nomenclature needs rules

Abstract

Intentional departures from Linnaean nomenclature are common, and are due to different causes, including deliberate refusal to obey a specific rule of the Code, full rejection of Linnaean nomenclature in favour of an alternative system, use of formulae for special kinds of organisms and especially the use of informal names, or formulae, for kinds of organisms provisionally recognized as corresponding to still undescribed species, whose actual description and naming are reserved for a subsequent study. Special attention should be paid to the mixed usage of names and formulae in the BOLD and GenBank databases. Save for BINs in the BOLD databases, that are an excellent example of how to create and use non-Linnaean formulae for segments of biological diversity, the other kinds of grey nomenclature are seriously faulty in three respects: first, the lack of rules for the creation and usage of these names or formulae precludes unambiguous understanding of what the name or formula is for; second, it is often unclear, especially in database entries, if the alphanumeric specifiers added to a genus name, or even to a Linnaean binomen, are intended to provide unambiguous labelling of a single specimen, or of a taxon, or both; third, and most important, because of the subjectivity of the criteria according to which these non-Linnaean names are created and used, it is generally impossible to compare them across studies, or databases. When using names (or formulae) other than Linnaean binomens, it should be always made clear what the label is intended for. This requires an international agreement on a small set of simple, clear principles, fixing the standard format for each of the objects we need to distinguish, starting with the definition of a number of standard formats for the different kinds of objects (or hypotheses) we need to label, such as individual, species, undescribed new species.