List order (was: Maximum Taxon names within a single Parent)

[Barry Roth]

 I have seen this practice too, and it generally proceeds from at least a tacit assumption that there are "advanced" and "primitive" species -- ignoring the fact that "advanced" and "primitive" are attributes of character-states and that most taxa are mosaics of both.  My question is why would one wish to capture this sequence information -- misguided, in my opinion -- in the first place.  Clearly, expressing taxa in a single linear sequence (as required in a list), when the relations between the component taxa are those of a tree, has its limitations.  Because in a cladogram, paired branches can be rotated at a node without changing the meaning, which of those branches is listed first has no significance in itself.  To choose the order, you have to rely on some external principle -- alphabetic order would serve; it just must be recognized for the convention that it is.  I have sometimes used the convention of treating the less-ramified of two branches first.  In other words, if a clade contains two terminal taxa and its sister-group contains four terminal taxa, I would list/treat the former first.  I imagine this is more efficient than the other way around.  In a monograph, if there is a key to the component species, it may make sense to treat the species in the order that they key out -- not for any phylogenetic reason but just as a convenience to the reader.  It would be interesting to hear other ideas on conventions for list order.
Barry Roth
  Richard Pyle <deepreef at BISHOPMUSEUM.ORG> wrote: Throughout much of the history of taxonomic nomenclature, many authors of
References have attempted to convey/assert their interpretations of
phylogenetic placement of same-rank taxon names by listing those names in a
non-alphabetical sequence within their respective parent taxon names. For
instance, in many published fish checklists, the families are arranged in
some sort of "phylogenetic" sequence, rather than simple alphabetical order.
I would like to provide a means in my database of capturing this
sorting-within-parent information, as asserted by authors of said
references. In the vast majority of cases, this practice of conveying
phylogeny through name seqencing is limited to the rank of family and
higher. However, there are some taxonomic references that have extended the
practice to lower-level ranks as well.



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