Taxonomic inflation—the increase in species richness through taxonomic rearrangement rather than species discovery—is a challenge to conservation (Isaac et al., 2004). The examination of the conservation impacts of taxonomic inflation on a group as large and diverse as birds is clearly a monumental task. Birdlife International’s recent revision increased the number of recognized bird species by some 10%, thus providing an opportunity to test whether taxonomic revision disrupts conservation. Simkins et al. (2020) conclude, with some surprise, that there was little impact on the number of species meeting IUCN’s international Red List criteria. They then extol the ‘clear benefits of improving understanding’ as outweighing what they describe as the ‘cost in terms of higher extinction risk, a reduction in the performance of site‐based networks in capturing species’ ranges or a significant increase in the number of areas of high conservation threat that require a response’. Three questions arise from their analysis, which shows that the absolute number of globally threatened species increased only slightly overall, with no change in average extinction risk, and only one new place, eastern Amazonia, emerging as a global hotspot for threatened bird species (Simkins et al., 2020).

First, while Simkins et al. (2020) describe the patterns that emerge, they do not explain why the result obtained was counter‐intuitive, i.e. why it was that most of the split taxa failed to exceed the thresholds of the IUCN Red List criteria when split. Or why it was that many of those that did cross those thresholds, and thus warrant listing, were already encompassed within the Important Bird Area network. However, perhaps the results are not surprising after all. First, splitting mostly occurred in common species in which morphological discontinuities and regional dialects had not previously been acknowledged as meeting species criteria. Such common species are probably not rapidly declining so, even if the ranges of split taxa cross the area or population size Red List Criteria, they cannot be listed as threatened unless they are also declining sufficiently to meet the Red List Criteria or there are fewer than 1,000 mature individuals. Secondly, the few species that do cross listing thresholds when split are probably more likely to occur in landscapes where more obvious splits had already been recognized. These are the species used to characterize the IBAs (Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas) that the newly split species now join.

It is also possible that the result is serendipitous. Simkins et al. (2020) admit they do not know how their findings might apply to other groups of organisms. They also do not know if they would get the same results with different settings of the taxonomic criteria applied. The Tobias revision (Tobias et al., 2010) is unusually specific in setting criteria for what constitutes a species or not, allowing hypotheses to be tested in a manner not available to other forms of species delineation. Theoretically it should then be possible to set a higher or lower bar for what constitutes a species and explore the ‘species’ patterns that emerge. A lower threshold might mean many more species and many more gaps to fill in the IBA network. Alternatively, a higher threshold of difference could lead to widespread lumping of similar forms and the newly emerged hotspots for IBA investment would sink into a sea of taxonomic homogeneity.

Which exposes a third facet of the analysis: the thresholds for the Tobias criteria (Tobias et al., 2010) were determined primarily by scientists in the global north. In fact, nearly all expressions of taxonomic freedom are exercised in the global north. Many taxonomists have strong ties to conservation, creating an apparent conflict of interest even if the taxonomists concerned are impeccable at separating their aspirations for conservation from their decisions about taxonomy. It is nevertheless telling that Simkins et al. (2020) have to point out that the benefits of improving our understanding of taxonomic units are “clear” compared to the theoretical “cost of higher extinction risk”. Quite apart from their incommensurability, while the gains are to one sector of global society, the costs are often to another. The areas that emerged requiring increased protection were in the global south—eastern Amazonia, Java and the Philippines—all of them areas where Indigenous Peoples have rights to much of the land (Garnett et al., 2018) but are commonly disempowered by the State. Personally we might advocate increased protection for these areas, and might see the advantages of retaining as much of the diversity of these areas as possible and grieve for the losses likely to occur. However, people eking out livelihoods in those areas who might be affected by protecting habitat that they need to feed their children had no say in what was transparently a subjective process of setting taxonomic thresholds. That the same people could eventually benefit from appropriate conservation investment (see Waldron et al., 2020) does not detract from the argument that the subjective parts of taxonomy, as opposed to the technical aspects (Zachos et al., 2019), are inherently political with real‐world consequences.

Each of the four global lists of birds mentioned by Simkins et al. (2020) is likely to produce different spatial patterns of cost and benefit. Each would claim some form of legitimacy derived from the sectors they serve and the uses to which they are put. Although the differences between these lists may be minor when directly compared, it is their usage that leads to more profound issues. When these differences are followed by others in the peer‐reviewed literature, the effects compound. What any of the four lists currently lack, however, is any formal endorsement as the list best suited to everyone. This may change given an expressed desire to create a single global bird list (Collar, 2018; McClure et al., 2020) and principles (Garnett et al., 2020) on how a single taxonomic list could deliver the institutional legitimacy to the taxonomic revisions of the sort described by Simkins et al. (2020). This shifts the argument from whether global taxonomic revisions hinder or hamper conservation to whether the revisions have been endorsed by global science before their application to the real world. Endorsed taxonomic lists would no longer need to justify themselves. Rather the users of taxonomy could get on with dealing with the consequences of taxonomic decisions, confident that the entities with which they aim to engage are endorsed by the strongest governance structure global science can provide.

分类学通货膨胀（通过分类学重排而不是物种发现增加物种丰富度）对保护提出了挑战（Isaac等人，2004年）。显然，分类学通货膨胀对像鸟类这样庞大而多样化的群体的保护影响显然是一项艰巨的任务。国际鸟类保护组织的最新修订将公认鸟类的数量增加了约10％，从而提供了一个机会来测试分类修订是否破坏了保护。Simkins等。（2020年）得出的结论是，对达到IUCN国际红色名录标准的物种数量几乎没有影响。然后，他们称赞“增进了解的明显好处”，胜过了他们所描述的“更高的灭绝风险，降低了实地网络捕获物种的性能方面的成本”或物种数量显着增加的代价。需要作出回应的高保护威胁地区”。他们的分析提出了三个问题，这些问题表明，全球受威胁物种的绝对数量总体上仅略有增加，平均灭绝风险没有变化，只有一个新的地方，东亚马孙地区，成为受威胁鸟类物种的全球热点（Simkins等人，2020）。

首先，而Simkins等人。（2020年）描述了出现的模式，但没有解释为什么获得的结果违反直觉，即为什么大多数拆分的分类单元在拆分时未超过IUCN红色清单标准的阈值。又或者为什么重要的鸟类保护区网络中已经包含了许多跨越这些阈值并因此得以列入清单的保护区。但是，结果也许毕竟不足为奇。首先，分裂主要发生在形态不连续和区域方言以前没有被确认为符合物种标准的常见物种中。这样的常见物种可能并不会迅速减少，即使分裂的分类单元的范围跨越了该区域或种群数量的红色名录标准，他们不能被列为受威胁者，除非它们也下降到足以满足《红色名录标准》的水平，或者成熟的人少于1,000人。其次，少数几个在分裂时会越过上市阈值的物种更有可能出现在已经认识到更明显分裂的景观中。这些是用来表征新分裂物种现在加入的IBA（重要鸟类和生物多样性地区）的物种。

结果也可能是偶然的。Simkins等。（2020）承认他们不知道他们的发现可能如何应用于其他生物体。他们也不知道使用不同的分类标准设置是否会得到相同的结果。Tobias修订版（Tobias等，2010）在设定物种构成或不构成的标准方面异常特殊，允许以其他形式的物种划分无法获得的方式检验假设。从理论上讲，应该有可能对构成物种的物种设置更高或更低的标准，并探索出现的“物种”模式。较低的阈值可能意味着需要更多物种才能填补IBA网络中的更多空白。或者，更高的差异阈值可能导致相似形式的广泛聚集，而新出现的IBA投资热点将陷入分类学同质化的海洋。

这暴露了分析的第三个方面：Tobias标准的阈值（Tobias等，2010）主要由全球北部的科学家确定。实际上，几乎所有分类自由的表达方式都在全球北部行使。许多分类学家与保护有着紧密的联系，即使相关分类学家在将其保护愿望与分类决定分开时无可挑剔，也造成了明显的利益冲突。然而，这告诉西金斯等人。（2020年）必须指出，与理论上“更高灭绝风险的代价”相比，增进我们对分类单位的理解是“显而易见的”。除了它们的不可通约性外，虽然收益是全球社会的一个部门，但成本通常是另一个部门。出现需要加强保护的地区是在全球南部-东亚马孙地区，爪哇和菲律宾-这些地区都是土著人民拥有大部分土地权利的地区（Garnett等人，2018），但通常被国家剥夺权力。就个人而言，我们可能主张加强对这些地区的保护，并可能会看到保留这些地区尽可能多的多样性的优势，并对可能发生的损失感到悲伤。但是，在那些可能需要保护自己的孩子的生境的地区，人们无法维持生计，这在透明地确定分类标准的主观过程中没有发言权。相同的人最终可以从适当的保护投资中受益（见Waldron等人，2020年）并不减损分类学的主观部分而不是技术方面的论点（Zachos等人，2019年））具有内在的政治性，并具有现实的后果。

Simkins等人提到的四个全球鸟类名单中的每一个。（2020）可能会产生不同的成本和收益空间格局。每个人都将要求某种形式的合法性，这些合法性来自于它们所服务的部门和用途。尽管直接比较时这些列表之间的差异可能很小，但是使用它们会导致更深刻的问题。在同行评议的文献中，当这些差异紧随其后时，其影响就会加剧。但是，目前这四个列表中的任何一个都缺少正式认可，因为该列表最适合每个人。考虑到表达出创建单一全球鸟类清单的愿望，这种情况可能会改变（Collar，2018 ; McClure et al。，2020）和原则（Garnett et al。，2020），有关如何将单个分类学列表传递给Simkins等人描述的那种分类学修订的制度合法性。（2020年）。这将论点从全球分类标准修订是否会阻碍或阻碍保护转移到在全球修订版本应用于现实世界之前是否已被全球科学认可。认可的生物分类清单将不再需要为自己辩护。相反，分类学的用户可以继续处理分类学决策的后果，并确信与他们接触的实体将得到全球科学可以提供的最强大的治理结构的认可。