[Taxacom] SUSPECT Re: Molecules vs Morphology

[Bob Mesibov]

Richard Zander wrote:

"Can I argue here that the genome does NOT include all that is relevant to determining evolution? I suggest that the environment or habitat is a kind of metachromosome or "envirosome" that contributes both direction of evolution and stabilization over time through natural selection. It is shared by all members of a species, and by affecting traits of a genus give coherence to evolution at the genus level.

Given this, morphology is a better clue to evolution than the genome since it is at the interface of genome and environment."

I don't think "better" works here. Doesn't selection select both the genome (sampling the population) and morphology (sampling morphospace)?

What morphology might do better than the genome is say something about the past environments through which a lineage evolved. That's a useful clue to history sensu Mesibov (see earlier Taxacom maunderings) but not to history sensu phylogenetics.
-- 
Dr Robert Mesibov
Honorary Research Associate
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and
School of Zoology, University of Tasmania
Home contact: PO Box 101, Penguin, Tasmania, Australia 7316
(03) 64371195; 61 3 64371195
Website: http://www.qvmag.tas.gov.au/mesibov.html