Archaeopterygid bird from China

[Karl Magnacca]

On 2 Apr 2005 at 8:05, Robert Mesibov wrote:
> Systematists s.s., on the other hand, especially in the last 30 years, have
> rigorously excluded geographical information from their thinking. "Location"
> is never, ever among the list of characters drawn up for a phylogenetic
> analysis,

I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad thing.  I haven't thought deeply
about it, but I think you could make a pretty good argument that there
isn't an expectation of "homology" for things that live in the same
area.  Moreover, you would have to use the pre-defined areas you seem to
disparage; otherwise you get into the morass of overlapping
distributions, like a quantitative character.

> and no phylogenetic software package includes algorithms for
> raising a skeptical eyebrow at patterns that make no geographical or
> geological sense.

I think a program like DIVA would at least tell you (after it's worked
out) whether your tree makes sense.

> "Centre of origin" thinking in 2005 is similarly after-the-fact. It's a
> belated attempt to root character-based phylogenies in geographical reality.

I don't understand what you're arguing for here.  I assume you're not
supporting determining center of origin before the fact, but somehow
concurrent with phylogenetic analysis.  But how could you actually do
it?  Attaching an address to branching events is simply a matter of
character optimization (which, of course, makes it wholly dependent on
the structure of the tree), but it sounds like you want more than that.

Karl
=====================
Karl Magnacca, USGS-BRD
PO Box 11, Hawaii Natl. Park, HI 96718
"Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has
gotten into the wrong hands."   --Sen. Jesse Helms