[Taxacom] systematics eggs in one basket

[Ken Kinman]

Richard (and others),
     Amen to that!!!  Over thirty years of being side-tracked is enough, and 
a modicum of appropriate (and explicit) paraphyly is how we will get back on 
track.  A paraphyletic Family Pongidae (great apes) giving rise to Family 
Hominidae certainly beats all the various (and confusing) strictly cladistic 
versions that have been generated.

     And note that in yesterday's updated bird classification, I don't dump 
Order Apodiformes into Order Caprimulgiformes just because the latter is 
paraphyletic.  However, I will place Phaethontidae in Caprimulgiformes if I 
can just find more evidence that it truly belongs there.  The difference is 
that Phaethontiformes has only one small family, and it doesn't have the 
long taxonomic history as a separate Order.

      As for morphologists vs. molecularists, neither should overshadow the 
other, and they should work in teams.  That is why my new bird 
classification incorporates certain elements from Ericson, et al., 2006 
("Diversification of Neoaves: integration of molecular sequence data and 
fossils"; Biology Letters, 2:543-7).  Molecularists teamed up with people 
like Gerald Mayr (a morphologist and paleontologist) and integrated their 
findings into a very useful analysis.  Livesey and Zusi's 2007 analysis 
could have moved even further forward if they had teamed up with at least 
one molecularist, and they therefore missed a golden opportunity.  Their 
database is truly a gold mine, but their analysis is very disappointing.

     Molecularists and morphologists need to work together, and neither side 
should take the other for granted.  The trouble with most molecularists is 
that so many of them have been virtually brainwashed into believing 
paraphyly is unnatural and bad, but then there are a lot morphologists who 
have the same problem (especially in vertebrate paleontology).  After 30+ 
years of being side-tracked, it is going take a while to repair the damage 
and recover the babies that have been thrown out with the taxonomic 
bathwater.  I believe this is especially true at higher taxonomic levels 
(families, orders, and classes) which more broadly affect many workers, 
policy-makers, and educators outside the field of systematics.
    -----Ken Kinman
*********************************
>From: "Richard Zander" <Richard.Zander at mobot.org>
>To: "Curtis Clark" <jcclark-lists at earthlink.net>, 
><taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
>Subject: Re: [Taxacom] systematics eggs in one basket
>Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 08:04:14 -0600
>
>Information from both molecular and morphological studies must be dealt
>with, most of us agree, Curtis. But just how is the puzzle.
>
>I figure that morphological characters are good clues in the context of
>the Modern Synthesis, with which one can infer adaptive strategies and
>the like. It's like using Newton's laws in the mesocosm, such laws work
>in the world we live in. Neutral evolution is either working at the
>molecular level or is dealt with by standard concepts of bottlenecking
>and drift. Recognizing species and higher categories that document or
>hypothesize functional evolution or otherwise hypothetically explain the
>phenome and environment interaction are important.
>
>Molecular phylogenetics is a kind of relentless pedigree study based on
>the generally acceptable idea that neutral base changes (and the like)
>track events of genetic isolation. It should not work well with groups
>that are not liable to the biological species concept (plants.
>Molecular tracking goes right down to the nut of tokogenetic or
>panmictic populations, theoretically. But do we want base classification
>on that? How do we take the good and slough the bad?
>
>Many of us have an answer: recognize paraphyly when appropriate.
>Example: If morphology and good analysis of functional evolution give
>(AB)C and molecular pedigree says (AC)B, we can, if we eschew strict
>monopyly in this case, say that AB is a taxon with coherent unifying
>evolutionary strategies (nonteleological of course) and C is a divergent
>lineage coming off (sharing an ancestor with) a genetically isolated
>population.
>
>Thus any family discovered deeply embedded in a lineage of another
>family can be continued to be recognized at the family if it represents
>a new evolutionary direction.
>
>Strict monophyly is a classificatory short-cut having the attraction of
>ease-of-paradigm. Inferring a process of functional evolution involves
>eventually a huge amount of work in population and reproductive biology,
>biophysics (exactly what does this plant use this structure for?), and
>biosystematics. We make a good start but thirty years ago got
>sidetracked.
>
>Remember biosystematics? I think it is time for a rededication.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>[mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Curtis Clark
>Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 9:38 PM
>To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
>Subject: Re: [Taxacom] systematics eggs in one basket
>
>On 2007-02-01 11:25, John Grehan wrote:
> > (and I would explicitly say a morphologist who
> > does not include molecular studies).
>
>A morphologist who eschews molecular studies is as bad as a molecular
>systematist who eschews morphology.
>
>--
>Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
>Web Coordinator, Cal Poly Pomona                 +1 909 979 6371
>Professor, Biological Sciences
>

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