[Taxacom] FW: Biodiversity and Species Value

[Richard Zander]

Correct, "enzymes have morphology, too." But . . . it's a combination of
a bunch of enzymes that make a species. How many enzymes are checked in
molecular analysis to build or represent as a good sample, by some kind
of theory, a species? Yes, diversity in functional proteins is worth
preserving, but only if it represents some kind (species) of organism
that takes evolutionary, ecological, biogeographical, and such like
"space" on our world. I see mainly assumptions and little proof that
molecular species are such.

Yes, the amazing wonder that cladograms from molecular analysis in the
main matches cladograms from morphological analyses is well-known but
much abused. The conflicts are the problem, not the match. 

*****************************
Richard H. Zander 
Voice: 314-577-0276
Missouri Botanical Garden
PO Box 299
St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA
richard.zander at mobot.org
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/
and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site:
http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm
*****************************

-----Original Message-----
From: Neil Bell [mailto:neil.bell at helsinki.fi] 
Sent: Monday, June 14, 2010 10:02 AM
To: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu; Richard Zander
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] FW: Biodiversity and Species Value

Richard Zander wrote:
> Yes, quantification is good but may be empty if reduced or inflated by

> strict monophyly or molecular microspecies. Quantities of invisible 
> molecular species will eventually not be impressive (what, we are 
> going to make big efforts and divert money to preserve non-coding 
> mutations that do not correlate with expressed traits?).

If species are *only* recognisable by a few non-coding molecular
characters, they will have a very low phylogenetic diversity relative to
the things that matter on any scale that uses appropriately chosen data
(inappropriately chosen data would be saturated or unalignable at higher
levels). PD factors in branch lengths, so it recognises magnitude of
difference, but (because it is phylogenetic) corrected for the extent to
which this difference is unique. PD by its nature becomes increasingly
significant at higher levels, where the data used is more likely to
include protein or functional RNA coding DNA and to correlate more or
less with morphology. In the situations where there is diversity in
functional molecular characters but not so much in external morphology,
isn't this worth preserving too? Isn't it just a question of scale? 
Enzymes have morphology too. The really different things with really
high PD values usually have highly unique morphology in any case,
especially once you start to look for it.

> inform leaders about proper though suboptimal actions

> amenable to techniques of empty precision. This cripples biodiversity 
> analysis

Clearly, suboptimal but valuable quantification/valuation grades
seamlessly into crippling empty precision. I agree that it is important
to get the balance right.