Cladistics and "Eclecticism"

[Thomas DiBenedetto]

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Jensen
Each letter refers to a single a single ancestor-descendant lineage.  In my
view, A continues as a species because it is, in fact, the same thing.
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But that is clearly not the case. How can you call A a single
ancestor-descendant lineage when it has C budding off the side of it?
Clearly A is NOT a single lineage - it is a branched lineage; a higher
taxon.
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... you made A "extinct" as a
species level taxon by changing its name to D (see below).  That's the point
I
am making - A, as a species level taxon, is no longer recognized (hence
extinct).
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How many times do I have to say this? "Extinction" is a totally ridiculous
way of characterizing the simple FACT that A has evolved from being an
unbranched lineage (hence ranked as a species) to a being a branched lineage
(hence a higher taxon).
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My point is that I don't believe that species A must be renamed in order to
acknowledge the fact that species C is derived from species A.
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TAXON A is not renamed at all. Its rank is merely adjusted to reflect the
reality that it is now branched.
I sense you are totally conflating an ecological sense of "species" with the
systematic sense of species as taxa.
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..... there is no need, under such circumstance, to
rename species A - it has not changed in any way except that it is the
progenitor of another species.
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Once agian, "species A" as some sort of an ecological unit may look the
same, but the reality of the lineage relationships are different. Yesterday
the lineage was terminal - a species. Today it is branched, a higher taxon.
It (the original lineage) is still called A. Its rank has changed however.


Tom DiBenedetto