Hi – BirdLife International has been quite conservative with regards to bird taxonomy, but are publishing what might be quite a radical departure, updating the taxonomic status (global) of 100s of taxa, by evaluating them against criteria set out in Tobias et al. (2010).
Think this is planned for this year.
See below.
Colin
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http://www.birdlife.org/globally-threatened-bird-forums/2012/10/consultation-on-forthcoming-lynx-birdlife-taxonomic-checklist/ Consultation on forthcoming Lynx-BirdLife Taxonomic Checklist
Posted on October 11, 2012 by Andy Symes
Lynx Edicions and BirdLife International are planning to publish a taxonomic checklist of the birds of the world, building off the Handbook of the Birds of the World series, and BirdLife’s annually updated taxonomic checklist. On top of a comprehensive review of the taxonomic literature, the new Lynx-BirdLife list will also be based on application of the criteria for recognising species limits described by Tobias et al. (2010). The new list will form the taxonomic basis of BirdLife’s assessments of the status of the world’s birds for the IUCN Red List.
Information and comment is now sought on a subset of potential ‘splits’ and ‘lumps’, particularly those for which acoustic and/or behavioural information may be critical in determining the appropriate taxonomic status. These are listed below. In some cases, details are provided of apparent morphological differences (with numbers in parentheses referring to provisional scores following Tobias et al. 2010), and specific requests for additional information sought.
Note that this is NOT a comprehensive list of all potential taxonomic revisions being considered, simply those for which input is particularly sought to determine whether changes to the status quo are appropriate.
Please provide any feedback and information by posting comments below. Unfortunately, owing to a tight publication schedule, we cannot undertake to provide responses to contributions at this stage.
Subsequent to publication, an open and transparent process will be established by which anyone can provide information or comments to inform regular updates to the list.
Please see the attached spreadsheet if you wish to search for species in the consultation by their countries of occurrence: Taxa for forum consultation, searchable by country
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