[Taxacom] Bolboceratinae or Bolboceratidae

[Doug Yanega]

I'll try not to belabor this, but, when John Grehan wrote:

>"WILL" sounds a bit like prophecy. Just because the molecular results
>don't match morphology does not mean the molecular results are
>necessarily more correct.

I am far - quite far, in fact - from an uncritical supporter of 
molecular systematics. Not all molecular data sets are created equal, 
however. The genes and gene regions selected, the competence of the 
sequencing and alignment, the thoroughness of taxon sampling...all 
are factors that can lead to a molecular dataset being either pure 
gold, or absolute rubbish. In the present case, the molecular work is 
excellent in all respects, while the morphological dataset is, 
ironically, highly suspect, including numbers of characters whose 
homology hypotheses (i.e., character coding) are virtually impossible 
to understand, let alone replicate (esp. the wing articulation and 
genitalic character sets - I cannot believe that any two scientists 
could independently arrive at the same codings that Browne & Scholtz 
did).

>  > Morphology alone is not sufficient in this case,
>
>Is this a transcendental truth (i.e. morphology will always be
>ambiguous) or contingent upon current knowledge?

I said "in this case" for a reason. The reason is that, despite a 
trend of an opposite nature, sometimes morphological data sets 
contain more noise than signal, while some molecular datasets give 
excellent and well-supported resolution rather than masses of 
polytomies. In this case, the molecular work has the upper hand (and 
yes, this is only my opinion). Show me a case where the molecular 
work is based on COI, for example, and I'll probably have exacly the 
opposite reaction - I, and others, have very little faith in this 
gene (at least as applied to insects), and if I see a conflict 
between a COI tree and a morphology tree, I'm likely to side with the 
morphology until and unless convinced otherwise.

>It sometimes seems that the more attention given to any group the more
>contentious and controversial it becomes.

I suspect it depends mostly upon the kind of people who are paying 
attention to a group. Of course, one might argue that the more people 
working on a group, the more likely it is that at least one of them 
will fall short in some respect, thus engendering "controversy".

Peace,
-- 

Doug Yanega        /Dept. of Entomology         /Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521-0314
phone: (951) 827-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
              http://cache.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82