Genus as the species

[Thomas G. Lammers]

At 01:54 PM 04-09-99 +1100, you wrote:

>Is this journal editor atypical? Would you as referee approve an abstract
>with this sentence: "We observed differences among the three species ...
>although significant changes ... only occurred in [genus name] and [genus
>name]."?

Never!  A genus is not a species (though one could argue that the point is
moot in unispecific genera, e.g. Ginkgo biloba).  This journal's approach
addresses the same problem that almost everyone else on the planet has
solved by initializing the genus name, e.g., "E. coli", but with a less
satisfactory solution.

Thomas G. Lammers

Classification, Nomenclature, Phylogeny and Biogeography
of the Campanulaceae, s. lat.

Department of Botany
Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60605-2496 USA

e-mail:    tlammers at fmnh.org
office:          312-922-9410 ext. 317 (voice-mail)
fax:                312-427-2530

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