Fwd: Re: Different codes - in support of the phylode

[Philip Cantino]

Ken Kinman wrote:

>      I informally recognized the "eudicot" clade in my 1994 classification,
>and I presumably always will.  But on the other hand, I see no reason to
>abandon the formal classification of angiosperms into two classes, even if
>monocots are cladistically embedded within dicots (a simple marker takes
>care of that, and it isn't necessary to know precisely which paleoherb order
>is their closest relative, the marker is easily moved and recoded).

The eudicot clade is one of the most strongly supported major clades
of angiosperms.  Why shouldn't it have a formal scientific name
rather than being designated with a symbol (Ken's preference) or an
informal English name (Tom Lammers' preference)?

I suspect that the only reason why the eudicot clade has never been
formally named is that to do so under the current system would
require giving it a rank, and it isn't clear what rank it should
have.  At least this was the reasoning in the paper on ordinal
classification by the "Angiosperm Phylogeny Group" (Bremer et al.,
1998--Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 85: 531-553; see p. 534).
Interestingly, the APG authors also declined to give the monocots a
formal name for the same reason, whereas Ken does give a Latin name
to the monocots (as do many other authors), presumably because this
group is traditionally recognized, whereas the eudicot clade is
relatively newly discovered. The eudicots and monocots are almost
equally strongly supported clades according to the APG paper (indeed,
the eudicots are slightly better supported).  Apparently, tradition
is the only reason why one of these groups is frequently given a
formal Latin name and the other one never is.  I find it paradoxical
that we refer to taxon names as "scientific names," yet tradition
sometimes plays a stronger role in detemining which entities are
named than do objectively measurable criteria such as clade support.


Phil


Philip D. Cantino
Professor and Chair
Department of Environmental and Plant Biology
Ohio University
Athens, OH 45701-2979
U.S.A.

Phone: (740) 593-1128; 593-1126
Fax: (740) 593-1130
e-mail: cantino at ohio.edu