rankless nomenclature

[Doug Yanega]

Tom Lammers wrote:

>>Why can't
>>Lepidopterists engage in PhyloCode "numenclature", while researchers
>>interested in other less completely known insect groups focus more on
>>Linnaean nomenclature?
>
>And when USDA, F&WS, TNC, or any other user-group wants to do ANYTHING with
>that organism, what name will it take?  When textbooks are written, when
>field guides are produced, when we lecture to the Sierra Club, what names
>will we use?  Now, instead of one set of names and their synonyms, we will
>have TWO sets of names and their synonyms.

I get the impression that Richard was suggesting that we split the taxa
among the codes - i.e., butterflies go under the PhyloCode *exclusively*,
and other insects (including moths) go under the Linnaean system
*exclusively*. If that's NOT what he was suggesting, then I'm with you - I
can't see how we can have two coexisting nomenclatures for the same
organisms and still communicate.

Richard also wrote:

>Maybe 25
>years from now obtaining a complete genome of an organism will be as simple
>as dropping a tissue sample in a portable "Mr. Genome" machine and pressing
>a big blue button.

Even if we could do that starting *today*, that would leave somewhere from
10-50 million species we would have to find DNA-containing specimens of,
identify, and drop into the Mr. Genome machine. Let's be really generous
and say we can get our hands on an average of 10 species each day. That's
still a minimum of 2,739 years of work ASSUMING we *have* a Mr. Genome
machine handy. We don't, and there's no such machine in the foreseeable
future. I think that does indeed qualify as a pipe dream. Worse still, when
you start doing sequencing, you discover that there are all sorts of
cryptic molecular "species" that mean instead of 10-50 million unnamed
taxa, you've got to contend with 100-500 million. You really think it's
practical to get sequences and construct phylogenies for that many taxa?
Me, I think we shouldn't waste time arguing about new codes until we've got
names on all these critters.

Again, if you want to adopt the PhyloCode for select taxa, I guess I
wouldn't have a problem with that. I can live with the ICBN being different
from the ICBN, I suppose I could just as easily adapt to the idea of fish
and mammals and birds, etc. being under a different system from insects.
But you can't use two systems for the SAME taxa - and if you can only use
one system, then I opt we stick with what works for the majority of taxa.


Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
           http://entmuseum9.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82