rankless nomenclature
Ken Kinman
kinman at HOTMAIL.COM
Thu Oct 12 16:19:19 CDT 2000
Beth,
I completely agree with your second comment below, and furthermore
names are not only easier to remember, but switching two letters in a name
is clearly a mistake, while switching two numerals would not be obvious at
all.
However, regarding the Lactarius example, I do not agree that a
phylogenetic tree or explanatory paragraph is usually necessary. Just
putting a family name with the genus can laconically speak volumes.
Lactarius (Russulaceae) shows you are speaking of the botanical genus, and
Lactarius (Lactariidae) shows you are speaking of the zoological genus. The
ordinal names would do the same (Russulales vs. Perciformes).
Standardization of all ordinal endings in zoology (as botany already
does) would help further, and I favor a universal -ea ending for all Classes
across the board. I classify the two Lactarius genera in Classes
Homobasidiomycetea and Actinopterygea (these are not new names, just emended
the suffix by one or two letters, just like -phycea, -opsidea, etc.).
Linnean names and ranks can't replace cladograms, but on the other hand
I would point out to the strict cladists that the converse is equally true:
cladograms can't replace Linnean names and ranks!! Being an Ashlockian
"cladist", I believe both have their place in communicating ideas and in
information storage and retrieval.
------Ken Kinman
*******************************************************
Beth Frieders wrote:
>
>My comment, Doug, is that the genus Lactarius is both a fish and a
>mushroom. One would have no clue by looking at two species names whether
>they were both fish, mushrooms, or one of each. So in some cases Linnaean
>names convey no phylogenetic information either. One would have to include
>a phylogenetic tree with the species to show their relationship or provide
>a paragraph discussing it. To me, a cladogram is worth a thousand words.
>
>Names are much easier to remember and potentially have morphological
connotations, so I would be in favor of a name rather than a number for a
taxa.
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.
More information about the Taxacom
mailing list