[Taxacom] Order Campanulales (worth mantaining?)

[Steve Manning]

Hello all,

Well, one factor that might be considered is to what degree would an 
alpha taxonomist have difficulty in distinguishing the most similar 
members of Campanulales and Asterales.  If none, and if all other 
variables seem to balance equally, why lump them together?  I am not 
an expert in those orders but at least as between the Asteraceae and 
Campanulaceae, I don't have stereotypes of either that would tend to 
blur the distinctions between them.  Not familiar at all, though, 
with the Rousseaceae.

For what it is worth,
Steve

At 09:35 PM 2/16/2011, Kenneth Kinman wrote:
>Hi Kim,
>        I agree that whether a taxon is speciose or not is not crucial,
>but it is nevertheless one of many of the various considerations that
>need to be weighed and considered (although no single such consideration
>is crucial in and of itself).
>         However, I certainly do not agree that age (degree of
>divergence) is necessariy crucial either, in that it would unnecessarily
>reflect Hennig's insistence that classification MUST  eliminate all
>paraphyletic taxa, where sister taxa (sometimes better classified at
>different taxonomic ranks) must be rejected simply because they do not
>originate at the same point in time.  Sometimes a more intermediate
>approach yields the best result in the long term.
>        In the case of Campanulales, it is even more complex.  Especially
>that it would require the inclusion of Famly Rousseaceae, and the
>exclusion of certain families that have often been included within it
>(but more likley now splitting off within families of the traditional
>Asterales).
>        Anyway, surprisingly to some on taxacom, the latter consideration
>actually might make me lean toward following APG (II and III) in this
>case, and place Campanulaceae (and thus Campanulales) in Order
>Asterales.  If there is no strong preference to maintain a separate
>Order Campanulales, I may actually follow APG's ordinal lumping in this
>case, as shockingly as that might seem to some who think I have some
>anti-cladistic or anti-molecular bias.  But this is not necessarily for
>the same reasons that APG decided to lump them.
>        In any case, I'm quite willing to be persuaded to do so, but not
>for most of the reasons that have been expressed so far today on taxacom
>which seem to assume that I have already made up my mind to retain
>Campanulales as a full Order.  Such an assumption is not correct, and
>retaining an Order Campanulales is certainly not at the top  of my list
>of angiosperm Orders that should be retained and resisted from APG's
>overall tendency to lump too many angiosperm taxa at the ordinal level.
>This is simply a borderline case, and if there is no strong preference
>to retain an Order Campanulales, I am quite willing to follow APG on
>this one.  To do otherwise, I certainly could not claim to be in search
>of an optimal middle-ground classification.  I am quite willing to
>listen to arguments either way (online or offlist).
>             -----------Ken Kinman
>------------------------------------------------------------
>Kim van der Linde wrote:
>       I think this question is impossible to answer without knowing the
>wider context. I normally prefer some consistency such that the clade of
>the same rank are comparable in characteristics such as age, degree of
>divergence in morphological characteristics etc. Whether a clade is
>speciose or not is not crucial for me.
>Kim
>
>On 2/15/2011 9:58 PM, Kenneth Kinman wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >        Since I haven't updated my angiosperm >classification in almost
>2
> > years, I was looking at some possible changes, especially >some minor
> > coding changes.
> >         However, in the process, I also began to wonder >about whether
>to
> > continue separating Order Campanulales from Order >Asterales (which
>were
> > merged in APG II).  Although Order Campanulales may now >only include
>two
> > families (Campanulaceae and Rousseaceae), it is still >rather
>speciose.
> >       Anyway, I have no strong inclination one way or the >other in
>this
> > case.  So I wonder if any taxacomers have any preferences >one way or
>the
> > other?  Lump Order Campanulales into Asterales, or keep >them as
>separate
> > sister Orders?
> >              --------Cheers,
> >                              Ken Kinman
> >
> >
>
>
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