Kingdoms

[B. J. Tindall]

Ken Kinman wrote:
>     The suffix Meta- means: after, higher, above, beyond, etc.  Metazoa and
>Metaphyta are usually translated as Higher Animals and Higher Plants.  The
>more primitive "lower" animals and plants remain in Protista.
oops you mean prefix. The concept of "higher" and "lower" has a rather
gradistic aspect to it implying that the "lower" organisms never developed
further. I suggest that all current organisms must be successful to
survive, with their ancestors dying out - irrespective of whether single
cells or mutlicellular organisms. I would not deny that we have single
celled organisms and mutlicellular organisms, but higher and lower,
primitive and advanced prejudges certain aspects.

>     Eumycota are very successful and apparently the most speciose of
>protist groups, but once they were given kingdom status, then Chromista had
>to be a separate kingdom, and then Archezoa, and others quickly followed.
>Not to be outdone, it looks like we are going to have about a dozen
>prokaryotic kingdoms (has the new "Bergey's Manual" started coming out
>yet?).
Sounds like this is directed towards me!? Well yes the Manual will be
putting in a "complete" heirachical system, but I am not sure who sketched
the outline. There is a danger that it could potentially do more damage
than good. As with many such systems it will also be taken over by the NCBI
(this is predicted fact not critique of the NCBI - I know you as
"listening!") and then everyone who uses the Internet and does not work
primarily in prokaryote systematics (are there many of us left) will accept
it as the latest Gospel, without realising that it may need modification.

>     I learned the 4 Kingdom system in the 60's, and it's still just as
>natural and easy to learn as it was back then.  Ever since "fungi" got
>bumped up, classifications of organisms have just gotten inflated and more
>confusing.  Thus the lure of the simplistic 3 Urkingdoms (a.k.a. 3 Domains)
>was hard for many to resist.  I shudder to think what PhyloCode might do at
>these higher taxonomic levels---lots more formal names plus discarding
>Linnean ranks-----the arthropods alone are going to be a nightmare.  Now I'm
>depressed too.
I learnt 5 and also prokaryotes/eukaryotes and then the "triplet system"
eubacteria (Bacteria)/archae(o)bacteria (Archaea)/eukaryotes. There is
probably too much discussion on which system is "correct", when we may
never be able to prove any of them. Despite being a "higher" organism man
may never be able to work out exactly what the first (primitive) cells
looked like. However, I see no reason to be depressed, since there is a lot
to learn about present day organisms (and that of course includes ATBIs!).
Brian





********************************************************************
* Dr.B.J.Tindall      E-MAIL bti at dsmz.de                           *
* DSMZ-Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH *
* Mascheroder Weg 1b, D-38124 Braunschweig, Germany                *
* Tel.: ++ 531 2616 0 (general)                                    *
* Tel.: ++ 531 2616 224 (direct)                                   *
* Fax:  ++ 531 2616 418                                            *
* Fax:  ++ 531 2616 491 (ISDN)                                     *
*                                                                  *
* Homepage: http://www.dsmz.de/index.html                          *
* E-MAIL: help at dsmz.de (general enquiries)                         *
*         sales at dsmz.de (sales)                                    *
********************************************************************