[Taxacom] London - Systematics Association Lecture, 7th July

[James Cotton]

The Systematics Association
Sir Julian Huxley lecture

Species for Macroevolution

Prof. Andy Purvis, Imperial College, London.

The Linnean Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London
Wednesday 7th July 2010, 6 pm

The meeting is open to visitors. Wine will be served after the lecture
to members and guests. Please advertise this lecture as widely as you  
can.

Abstract: Species are fundamental units for evolutionary biology.   
Alone among the levels
of classifications into which we place individuals, the species level  
has the potential to have
an objective reality: when we count them, we think we are counting  
something meaningful.  If
we compare number of species in different taxa, regions, or times, we  
are led to try to
understand why the numbers are different or similar.  Incomplete  
knowledge may lead us to
use higher taxa, such as genera or families, instead, but we do so in  
the hope and
expectation that they will reflect what good species-level data would  
show.  I will argue: 1.
That this hope is misplaced – analysing higher taxa conflates  
processes that should be kept
separate; 2. That analysing temporal patterns in numbers of higher  
taxa might be particularly
problematic when using large, multi-author databases; 3. That even  
species cannot be used
uncritically in macroevolutionary analyses – even with good data (a  
complete phylogeny of
present-day species, or a complete record of fossil species) – but  
that 4. The best fossil
records can let us come close to the ideal species for macroevolution,  
letting us tackle
questions that cannot be addressed any other way.

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James Cotton
School of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Queen Mary, University of London
+44 (0)207 882 3645
j.a.cotton at qmul.ac.uk
http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/jacotton/index.html
http://www.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/staff/jamescotton.html
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