Talk:Salmo trutta fario

"River trout" not an accepted common name

The use of the name "River trout" to describe riverine forms of the brown trout is confusing and not supported with sources. Fishbase does not list "River trout" as a common name for Salmo trutta or any of its synonyms. [1]. --Mike Cline (talk) 18:12, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi Mike, that might be true in the US, but not in the rest of the world. I checked sources before making the changes and there is abundant evidence in book sources that "river trout" is commonly used and about 1,000 times more common than "riverine brown trout", whether associated with fario or not. Here's the data from Google Books:

• "river trout" - 30,800 hits
• "river trout" + "fario" - 1,390 hits
• "riverine brown trout" - 37 hits
• "riverine brown trout" + "fario" - 1 hit

So I'd be grateful if you'd revert your changes to reflect this. --Bermicourt (talk) 18:27, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

1) "River trout" is extraordinarily ambiguous as it could apply to any species of trout that lived in rivers, not just brown trout. 2) Search for "river trout" is very problematic as most instances returned are actually from the construction [name of river] trout, ie. Kern river trout. 3) "River trout" is not listed as a common name in FishBase (the accepted authority for fish related articles.) 4) The "fario" morph is not a subspecies, so any brown trout that is stream resident, regardless of global geography is merely a riverine ecotype of brown trout. 5) Since widespread stocking of brown trout raised in hatcheries has taken place in Europe for decades, there is little chance that the brown trout that live in European rivers today, are genetically pure "fario" morphs as classified in the 18th century. 6) A search of scholarly literature (JSTOR) returned only 115 hits on "river trout". The great majority of returns were of the [name of river] river construction and did not refer to "river trout" in the context you suggest. Of the few (~10) that mentioned "river trout" in the context you suggest, most of those were referring to the use of "river trout" in captions on ancient Japanese artwork. 7) The same JSTOR search with "river trout" AND "fario" returned only 2 citations that properly combined S.t.fario and the common name "river trout". They were dated 1885 and 1931. I do not see the case for using "River trout" as the common name -- it is ambiguous and inaccurate. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:59, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Article title

If fario is just a morph name, then the article should not be at "Salmo trutta fario", since under the ICodeZN, the third part of a trinomial is a subspecies name. I have no expertise in this area, so I don't know whether fario is an accepted subspecies name, or a morph name (not a 'rank' accepted in the ICodeZN). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:18, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

The previous name of "river trout", which is what this fish is called in other languages, was rejected for the reasons given above. So, unless we go back to that, the fario is needed to distinguish it from the many other forms of Salmo trutta: Salmo trutta lacustris, Salmo trutta trutta, Salmo trutta ferox, Salmo trutta marmorata, Salmo trutta carpio, Salmo trutta labrax, etc. Bermicourt (talk) 09:38, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Bermicourt: my point is about the name, not the taxon. You wrote many other forms of Salmo trutta: Salmo trutta lacustris, ..., but these are not forms, but subspecies, since the third part of the trinomial scientific name of an animal is always a subspecies. See my response to Nick Thorne below. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Having just read this article, it seems to me that the lead makes the case for this article to simply be merged into Salmo trutta. This is not a recognised taxon, why do we have an article? This should simply be a redirect and a line added to the main article that this is an obsolete synonym of the main species. - Nick Thorne ^talk 10:19, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

@Nick Thorne: I have no view on whether the taxon is recognized as a morph or a subspecies or neither, having no expertise in the area. My point is solely that if the article exists, then its text, which uses "Salmo trutta morpha fario", and the its title, currently "Salmo trutta fario" (which is a subspecies name, not a morph name), should be consistent. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree, however see my next section. - Nick Thorne ^talk 12:02, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Merge this article into Salmo trutta

Fishbase contains a record for this subspecies[2] which states that the name Salmo trutta fario is not currently accepted. In other words, this taxon is not recognised. Consequently I propose that any unique info from this page be moved to a subsection about obsolete synonyms within the Salmo trutta article and this article be converted to a redirect to that page. If I do not recieve any substantive objections to this I will proceed with a formal merger proposal. - Nick Thorne ^talk 12:09, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Oppose at least until proper research justifies this. Salmo trutta is a species with several subspecies and morphs, all of which are studied and discussed separately in the scientific press - there are thousands of books and journals that refer to Salmo trutta fario (first classified by Linnaeus) to distinguish it from other subspecies and morphs. This is clearly its WP:COMMONNAME. Regardless of whether it is a taxon or not, it appears to justify a separate article. Part of the problem may be that our language only has one name, "brown trout" for most of these forms, whereas other (mainly European) languages clearly recognise them as separate.

An option might be to move it to Salmo trutta morpha fario, a name which is also used, albeit far less frequently that Salmo trutta fario, so we'd need to find the Wiki policy logic for not using WP:COMMONNAME. Bermicourt (talk) 12:28, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Google Scholar shows some 3,000 papers published in the last 10 years that use the subspecies name Salmo trutta fario. About 230 use Salmo trutta morpha fario. So on this basis, I can see no case for the morph name. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:37, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree WRT the "morpha" name, however how do we distinguish uses of S. trutta fario in the context of obsolete synonyms - these would still record a hit. I have only conducted a superficial search ATM, but so far all the recent articles on S. trutta taxonomy that I have seen do not mention fario. There is discussion of a species complex, but none of the mentioned lineages are named fario that I have seen so far. I think we need to be mindful that the taxonomy/cladistics of species has undergone a major revolution since the advent of relatively cheap and available DNA sequencing. Much of previous taxonomic division has been shown to be incorrect, and indeeed new divisions have become apparent in some cases. I trust Fishbase as an excellent tertiary source in this matter to be relatively up to date and in the absense of some pretty good very recent sources with similar standing to the contrary I stand by my proposal. - Nick Thorne ^talk 13:16, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Support based on many debates within WP:FISH that resulted in a consensus to use Fishbase as the definitive source for fish taxonomy. The limitations of Fishbase have been long discussed, with the primary objection that the taxonomy tends to lag behind scientific consensus, but the lag is acceptable since those changes eventually are integrated into Fishbase. No objection to breaking the article back into a subspecies article once it is recognized there, but as long as Salmo trutta fario shows as not currently accepted there, Wikipedia should reflect that. Another discussion could be started at WP:FISH to alter that consensus to use Fishbase in favor of another resource, but it comes up every few years, and after a discussion it is always recognized that although Fishbase isn't perfect, it is the best choice to use, for consistency, reliability, and accessibility to editors. Neil916 (Talk) 16:58, 3 August 2018 (UTC)