{"id":525,"date":"2015-08-07T17:55:48","date_gmt":"2015-08-07T17:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/devbceclements.wpengine.com\/?page_id=525"},"modified":"2023-12-01T20:23:14","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T20:23:14","slug":"overview-august-2015","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.birds.cornell.edu\/clementschecklist\/introduction\/updateindex\/overview-august-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"August 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Overview<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Go directly to 2015 Updates & Corrections<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the tenth installment of Updates and Corrections following the publication (2007) of the sixth edition of The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World<\/em>; because the Clements Checklist is tightly interwoven with the taxonomy for eBird<\/a>, the checklist now is referred to as the eBird\/Clements Checklist. The entire checklist (including the 2015 Updates and Corrections) is available as a downloadable spreadsheet<\/a> (in Excel and .csv formats). This year’s spreadsheet version is eBird\/Clements Checklist v2015, and will be released on 10 August 2015.<\/p>\n

The spreadsheet contains 14 fields (data columns):<\/p>\n

sort v2015<\/strong> – reflects the sequence of species, groups, and subspecies in eBird\/Clements v2015<\/p>\n

Clements v2015 change<\/strong> – a brief note to signal that a change from Clements Checklist 6.9 occurred for that entry. Sometimes only a single change is made per entry; sometimes several changes are made, although only one or two may be noted in the spreadsheet. In all cases, please consult the Updates and Corrections \u2013 August 2015<\/a> page for a full explanation of these changes.<\/p>\n

Text for website v2015<\/strong> – a brief explanation of the change from Clements Checklist 6.9 occurred for that entry. Please consult the Updates and Corrections page for a more complete explanation of these changes.<\/p>\n

Category<\/strong> – reflecting whether the entry on that line is a species; a subspecies; a monotypic group (i.e., a group that is equivalent to a single subspecies); or a polytypic group (a group composed of two or more subspecies). Thus, the total number of subspecies recognized in the eBird\/Clements Checklist is the sum of all entries listed as “subspecies” and as “group (monotypic).”<\/p>\n

English name<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scientific name<\/strong><\/p>\n

Range<\/strong><\/p>\n

Order<\/strong><\/p>\n

Family<\/strong><\/p>\n

Extinct<\/strong> – an entry in this column means that the species or subspecies is extinct<\/p>\n

Extinct year<\/strong> – reflects the year the species or subspecies went extinct (or, since the extinction date rarely is known with certainty, the last year in which it was reported); “xxxx” is used when the date of extinction was not readily accessible.<\/p>\n

Sort 6.9<\/strong> – reflecting the sequence of species in Clements Checklist 6.9<\/p>\n

Sort 6.8<\/strong> – reflecting the sequence of species in Clements Checklist 6.8<\/p>\n

Page 6.0<\/strong> – reflecting the page number of the species in the last (sixth) print edition (2007)<\/p>\n

Here is a brief review of the changes that are introduced in the eBird\/Clements Checklist v2015:<\/p>\n

SUMMARY STATISTICS<\/p>\n

Species<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 10473
\nSubspecies\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>20697
\nGroups <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a03013
\nFamilies<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 234 (with 1 additional, extinct, family)<\/p>\n

SPECIES<\/p>\n

In this year’s updates, we have a net gain from three new species, that is, species for which there was no entry at all in the previous edition of the eBird\/Clements Checklist. These three represent species that only recently were described to science, one from perennial powerhouse South America, and two from tropical Asia. An additional newly described species, from the Western Palearctic, also is included in the checklist; due to a tricky nomenclatural situation, however, this newly described species does not result in a net increase in the overall tally. Another 73 species are newly recognized in the eBird\/Clements Checklist due to “splits.” There also is a loss of 7 species due to “lumps.”<\/p>\n

As before, we update the taxonomy and nomenclature of species for North America, based on decisions of the North American Checklist Committee (NACC), through the Fifty-sixth supplement<\/a> to the American Ornithologists’ Union Check-list of North American Birds<\/em> (July 2015).\u00a0 We also are current with decisions of the South American Classification Committee<\/a> (SACC) through 8 July 2015.<\/p>\n

GROUPS<\/p>\n

eBird\/Clements Checklist has adopted the concept of the group, which initially was developed by for eBird<\/a>, a free, global online system to manage your bird records and bird lists. A “group” is a distinctive (field identifiable) subspecies or group of subspecies. The group is not a formal taxonomic unit, but often represents a potential future split (and so groups are a valuable taxonomic tool for the savvy birder).<\/p>\n

Groups first were added to Clements Checklist in December 2009 (Clements Checklist 6.5). In the eBird\/Clements Checklist v2015, we add 263 new groups.<\/p>\n

Some of our attempts at arranging subspecies into groups are incomplete: one or more distinctive subspecies have been identified as groups, but the remaining subspecies have been left “hanging” \u2013 they do not belong to any of the groups we have created in that species, but we have yet to form one or more new groups to accommodate them. These “hanging” subspecies now are highlighted in two ways: 1) the sequence of subspecies and naming of the groups within the species always make it clear that these are not included in a group (i.e., they follow a monotypic group or the species as a whole, so are clearly not a component of any groups listed above; and 2) in the spreadsheet we have color coded these “hanging” subspecies in gray to further clarify that their status with respect to groups remains unresolved.<\/p>\n

Species with partially formulated (“hanging”) groups are the following:<\/p>\n