[Taxacom] authorities of kingdoms of life

Ken Kinman kinman at hotmail.com
Mon Feb 12 20:22:10 CST 2007


Dear All,
     It appears that Haeckel 1866 included Phylum "Moneres" in his Kingdom 
Protista.  However, he had raised it to Kingdom Monera by 1870 (perhaps in 
1868?).  However, if we are going to get technical, we must consult the 
"Official List" of bacterial names.  The only kingdom on that list is 
Kingdom Bacteria Cavalier-Smith, 2002.  However, since Cavalier-Smith 
himself in 1998 attributes the authorship of Bacteria to Cohn 1870, I don't 
see the harm in calling it Kingdom Bacteria Cohn, 1870.  Whoever the 
official author is, I will henceforth use Kingdom Bacteria rather than 
Kingdom Monera!!!  Archaebacteria is recognized as a valid division (phylum) 
name, which is fine with me (as is the absence of the totally inappropriate 
name "Archaea" from the official list).

     As for Kingdom Protista Haeckel 1866, none of the traditional Codes has 
real jurisdiction, since it is a high level taxon and contains forms 
traditionally considered animals or plants or both (some having both 
zoological and botanical names).  I forgot that Margulis had merely 
resurrected the name Protoctista, but most biologists who I know don't like 
it or use it.  Anyway, Haeckel continued to use Kingdom Protista even after 
he separated off Kingdom Monera for the prokaryotes, so the author of 
Protista is Haeckel whether it be technically dated 1866, 1868, or 1870.

     Of course, the strict cladists don't like either Kingdom Bacteria 
(prokaryotes) or Kingdom Protista (protists), because they are paraphyletic. 
  But that's too bad, because most everyone else is going to keep using 
them.  It was an unfortunate attempt to cladify prokaryotes that resulted in 
Woese's Three Domain classification, but that has been dying a slow death 
(far too slow from my perspective) since Ernst Mayr's paper "Two Empires or 
Three" in 1998 (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 95:9720-9723).  There's nothing 
archaic about Archaebacteria anyway, and I still prefer the name 
Metabacteria (which actually has priority over Archaea).

      In any case, it is time for us to get back to the fundamental division 
of life into prokaryotes (Kingdom Bacteria) and eukaryotes (the other four 
kingdoms).  You can formally classify them as Empire Prokaryota and Empire 
Eukaryota (as did Cavalier-Smith and Ernst Mayr), but with just 5 Kingdoms 
to learn, is lumping them into Empires really all that necessary?  Empire 
Prokaryota is somewhat redundant (= Kingdom Bacteria), so "Kingdom Bacteria 
(prokaryotes)" certainly gets that information across nice and clear.   What 
is perhaps an even more important lesson is that "fungi" is NOT a natural 
group, and that is why I prefer Kingdom Eumycota for the "true fungi".
     ----Cheers,
             Ken Kinman
P.S.  Metazoa Haeckel, 1874 is bascially a synonym of Animalia Linnaeus 
1758, so take your pick, although I still prefer the former (unless you want 
to put protozoans in Animalia too).  And Metazoa literally means "higher 
animals", while Animalia has always been rather nebulous, but no big deal 
either way.  However, Kingdom Metaphyta does NOT equal what Cavalier-Smith 
and others now call Kingdom Plantae (including red algae, glaucophytes, and 
green algae).  Therefore the name Plantae is now nebulous, while Metaphyta 
is universally recognized as the clade of embryophytes (= Cormophyta 
Endlicher, 1836; but how many people would actually prefer Cormophyta over 
Metaphyta?).  As Jim Reveal noted, the expansion of Haeckel's Plantae is 
probably not technically valid anyway.

    Anyway, I obviously favor keeping all the algae in Kingdom Protista.  
Every attempt to cladify protists has failed miserably, so why do so many 
people keep trying to split them up just because they are paraphyletic.  
They're not polyphyletic AND it's a very useful taxon, so I say leave well 
enough alone!!!  Here's the classification and phylogeny of Kingdom Protista 
which I posted here on Taxacom almost a year ago (05 March 2006):

Dear All,
      Since the 5-Kingdom system has been so popular for so long, I'm going 
to (temporarily?) give it a try here.  To convert it to my preferred 
4-Kingdom system, you can simply replace the exgroup marker {{EUMYCOTA}} 
with the 3 eumycotan Phyla--Eomycota (incl. microsporidians), Ascomycota, 
and Basidiomycota.  In any case, I will not use the name "Fungi" as a formal 
taxon name (Eumycota is far more precise for the true fungi).  And I 
certainly will not recognize a 6th Kingdom for the Chromista clade 
(Cryptophyta, Haptophyta, and Heterokonta).  Following the classification, I 
will further discuss various subclades of Protista.
     Anyway, the total is 16 Phyla of protists (and it would be 19 phyla if 
you included the 3 phyla of Eumycota). The Apusozoa may need to be split off 
from Rhizaria, but I expect virtually all of the other "candidate" phyla 
will actually turn out to fit nicely into one of the phyla listed below.  We 
certainly do NOT need a bunch of new eukaryotic kingdoms.  As always, the 
main clades are numbered in the order in which they split off 
phylogenetically.

             KINGDOM PROTISTA

  1   Choanozoa (= Mesomycetozoa)
_a_   {{EUMYCOTA}}
_b_   {{METAZOA}}
  2   Amoebozoa
  3   Rhizaria
  4   Loukozoa (jakobids and allies)
  B   Metamonada (incl. Parabasalia)
  C   Percolozoa
  D   Euglenozoa
  5   Glaucophyta
  B   Rhodophyta
  C   Chlorophyta
_a_   {{METAPHYTA}}
  6   Cryptophyta
  B   Haptophyta
  C   Heterokonta (stramenopiles)
  7   Ciliophora
  8   Dinozoa (or Dinophyta)
  9   Sporozoa
----------------------------------------------
    NOTES:  Clade 1 is the opisthokont clade, which is sister to the 
anterokont clade (clades 2-9).  Phylum Amoebozoa is sister to the bikonts 
(clades 3-9).  Phylum Rhizaria is sister to the corticoflagellates (clades 
4-9).
    Clade 4 is made up of the four excavate phyla (of which Percolozoa and 
Euglenozoa make up a discicristate subclade).  Excavates are sister to the 
photokaryotes (clades 5-9).  Clade 5 is the plant clade, which 
Cavalier-Smith calls Plantae, and it also equals the Archaeplastida clade of 
Adl et al., 2005.  And finally we have the chromalveolates
(three phyla of chromists and three phyla of alveolates)---still the "crown 
group" after all these years.  :-)
      ------Cheers,
                   Ken Kinman
*********************************
Jim Reveal wrote:
     It is
>possible the Haeckel (1866) name is valid but as this name can not be
>typified (only circumscribed), this may or may not apply in the sense used
>today. If its circumscription is not what we know today as Plantae, then, 
>if
>validly published, any use of the name Plantae with a more refined
>description would be a later homonym and thus not legitimate.
>
>Jim Reveal
>
>The Monera can be traced to Copeland (1938):
>
>Copeland, H. F. 1938. The kingdoms of organisms.
>Quarterly Rev. Biology 13: 383-420.
>
>The Fungi can be traced to Whitaker (1957, 1959):
>
>Whittaker, R.H. 1957. The kingdoms of the living world. Ecology 38: 
>536-538.
>Whittaker, R.H. 1959. On the broad classification
>of organisms. Q. Rev. Biol. 34: 210-226.
>
>The name Protoctista is derived from Hogg (1860),
>although it is somewhat unclear whether he
>proposed the name Protoctista or Primigenal.  He
>considers "mineral" to be one of the kingdoms.  I
>have a pdf copy of this paper should anyone be
>interested in reading it.
>
>Hogg, J. 1860. On the distinctions of a plant and
>an animal, and on a fourth kingdom of nature. The
>Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 12:216-225
>(+ Plate III).
>
>Robert Andersen
>
>
>
> >
> >Diana,
> >    I am looking at Thomas Cavier-Smith's (1998)
> >"A revised six-kingdom system of life" (Biol.
> >Reviews, 73:203-266).  He shows Fungi Linnaeus,
> >1753; Animalia Linnaeus, 1758; and Plantae
> >Haeckel, 1866.   So that is three of them.
> >
> >     He doesn't use Monera, but rather Kingdom
> >Bacteria Cohn, 1870.  He doesn't use Protista or
> >Protoctista either, since he divides them among
> >Protozoa, Chromista, and Plantae.  I personally
> >prefer Protista (many people do), and I believe
> >that was also from Haeckel, 1866.  Protoctista
> >was named by Margulis herself, in the 1970's as
> >I recall.  An ugly name in my opinion, and
> >people often get the spelling wrong.  For what
> >it's worth, my personal preference for the five
> >kingdoms are Monera, Protista, Eumycota,
> >Metaphyta, and Metazoa.
> >    ----Cheers,
> >            Ken Kinman
> >********************************
> >>From: Diana Hernández <dhernand at xolo.conabio.gob.mx>
> >>To: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> >>Subject: [Taxacom] authorities of kingdoms of life
> >>Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 14:26:06 -0600
> >>
> >>Dear collegues,
> >>A very basic question:
> >>Does anybody know the authorities for each kingdom of those
> >>considered by Margulis & Schwartz, 1985:
> >>Protoctista
> >>Monera
> >>Fungi
> >>Plantae
> >>Animalia
> >>
> >>And if there is any publication where this is established?
> >>
> >>Thanks in advance
> >>
> >>Diana Hernandez
> >>

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