[Re:] Sample size

[Thomas Schlemmermeyer]

Obviously the genus you are working with is well known, or where did you get
the information from that you are using only 10% of the species number?

In general, only rarely a new classification is obtained directly by the trees.

The trees rather suggest new hypotheses which may lead to new classification
schemes.

Should such new hypotheses be amazing in any way, you might take another 10% of
the genus to check the outcome or gather literature results about the other 90%
of the species.

Finally, you could also try to work with a hypothetical construct, i.e. design
a hypothetical ancestral species of the genus, parting from literature
information.

I do not know whether you work with morphological or molecular data. Should you
work with morphological data, you may use additionally molecular data which get
increasingly available by the internet. But then you should check for which
species these data are available....

   cheers,   Thomas




On (         Sun, 18 Jul 1999 12:19:21 -0500
),         Joe & Alina <joeali at ECNET.EC> wrote:


>Dear Taxacomers:
>
>Is there a minimum number of taxa from a group to be sampled for a
>cladistic analysis before any classification can be made from the trees
>obtained? How reliable would be the classification based on a cladistic
>analysis that used 10% of the total number of species of a genus?
>
>Thank you for your help
>
>
>Alina
>
>**************************
>Alina Freire-Fierro
>Herbario Nacional del Ecuador QCNE
>Museo Ecuatoriano de Ciencias Naturales
>Avenida Rio Coca E5-116
>Casilla Postal 17-21-1787
>Tel/Fax (593-2) 441-592
>Quito - ECUADOR
>
>*****
>Domicilio:
>Joe "the Juggler" Welling
>Alina Freire Fierro
>Calle de los Capulies E1046 y Joaquin Sumaita
>Ciudadela Dammer
>Casilla Postal 17-15-755C
>Tel: (593-2) 412-405
>Quito, ECUADOR
>e-mail: joeali at pi.pro.ec
>****************************************************
>


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Schlemmermeyer
Museu de Zoologia, Universidade de São Paulo
Caixa Postal 42694
CEP 04299-970
São Paulo, SP, Brasil