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Major changes to the Code of Nomenclature —Melbourne, July 2011
Author(s) -
McNeill John,
Turland Nicholas J.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
taxon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1996-8175
pISSN - 0040-0262
DOI - 10.1002/tax.605030
Subject(s) - citation , library science , history , art history , computer science
When decisions of a Nomenclature Section of an International Botanical Congress (IBC) are presented in Naturenews (Cressey, 2011) and prompt an editorial in the journal itself (Origin of species, 2011) they must be of unusual significance. This was indeed the case for several of those taken at the recent XVIII IBC in Melbourne, Australia. Changes to the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (McNeill & al., 2006) require the decision of a plenary session of an IBC as proposed by its Nomenclature Section. The Nomenclature Section of the XVIII IBC met from 18 to 22 July 2011 in the University of Melbourne, and its decisions were approved by the final plenary session of that Congress on 30 July 2011, taking immediate effect except where otherwise limited (see below). We outline here the most-significant changes in the Code and introduce three other papers presenting in more detail the nature and implications of some of the decisions taken. Full details of the decisions of the Nomenclature Section on all the published proposals and of additional proposals made and accepted in Melbourne, along with the results of the preliminary mail vote, also appear in this issue (McNeill & al., 2011).