Of course, now the word committee becomes a noun in apposition. I still don't think it changes the situation appreciably. One reason is to avoid unnecessary redundancy. By convention, Fagaceae is defined as a family, so it is unnecessary to include the initial phrase. The British do use the plural verb form with collective nouns.
Effective communication is a necessity in all disciplines.
In this thread we are discussing a minor aspect of the proper way to construct our communications. It must be nice to work in a system in which the basic entities are static and unchanging, despite paradigm shifts.