[Taxacom] morphology in molecular phylogeny

[Maarten Christenhusz]

Dear all,

Don't understand me wrong, I am not here to attack anyone, because as in any field there are good and bad scientists in both morphological and molecular taxonomy.
I wanted to make two points:

1. When molecular phylogenies are made, the scientists should realize that also the identification should be verifyable, and thus they should cite the identifiers of the specimens. Also a voucher specimens of the samples used should be cited, so when working with living material, a museum sample should be made, so it can later be verified. At least I see voucher specimens made with most molecular studies nowadays, although there are still many records in GenBank whithout voucher information (should perhaps be made obligatory in GenBank?)

2. With phylogenies it should be attempted to include as many type species as possible, and genera should be tested for monophyly on multiple genes, and new taxonomy based on molecular studies, should also have a morphological basis, since we can not check the genes when we are in the field.

Maarten Christenhusz
University of Turku, Finland