[Taxacom] Arthropods and idiots!

Wed Dec 12 13:48:32 CST 2018

John accuses Ken of confusing nomenclature with systematics and then proceeds to do the very same thing! My point is a nomenclatural one. The systematic rationale for any name change is irrelevant! The only circumstance in which the major groups of Hexapoda, Arachnida and Crustacea should not be combined (with or without other groups which are "arthropodised" or not) as Arthropoda would be if "arthropodisation" in these three major groups was the result of convergence (or even coincidence). There are no nomenclatural rules governing the use of these higher names, so stability should be the main concern. There is nothing to say that a name must change if its "taxonomic concept" changes, i.e. whether Onychophora is an ingroup or an outgroup, Arthropoda is still Arthropoda. So, basically, although a few people might be more interested in working with a clade Euarthropoda, they definitely should not be allowed to destabilise the formal phylum Arthropoda, which remains, as always, a major grouping of organisms. Additionally, making such a massively significant name change based on a single article by a single author is never a good idea!

Stephen

--------------------------------------------
On Thu, 13/12/18, John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Arthropods and idiots!
 To: "Ken Kinman" <kinman at hotmail.com>
 Cc: "taxacom" <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>, "Stephen Thorpe" <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>
 Received: Thursday, 13 December, 2018, 5:25 AM

 Have to
 note that Ken is off base when confusing nomenclatural terms
 with the construction of systematic relationships once
 again. Making new names or changing old ones is something
 anyone with any phylogenetic approach can do. If Stephen is
 correct that 

 Arthropoda has simply been swapped for Euarthropoda it would
 certainly seem pointless, so it would have been a little
 more helpful to those not directly engaged in such issues if
 Stephen had referred to the rationale presented by the
 authors.
 When Ken states
 that he suspects that cladistic analyses are very badly
 misrooted I would agree with him that is of concern if
 correct (and by rooting I presume this means having the
 correct sister group as the outgroup?). So I would look
 forward in the future to any informative postings about
 that.

 John
 Grehan
 On Wed, Dec
 12, 2018 at 10:20 AM Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com>
 wrote:
 Hi Stephen,

        Just as strict cladists of vertebrate
 paleontology have destabilized vertebrate classification,
 strict cladists of arthropod paleontology seem to be doing
 the same to arthropod classification.

        HOWEVER, with arthropods it will likely be much
 worse if (as I have long believed) their cladistic analyses
 are very badly misrooted.  At least vertebrate trees are
 generally well rooted with appropriate outgroups.  If
 onychophorans, tardigrades, and other ecydysozoans are
 actually ingroups (and are merely dearthropodized), using
 them as outgroups has been misleading researchers for many
 decades.   You can read my postings on that subject (here
 on Taxacom) back in 2010:

                    http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom/2010-February/068191.html

                  ------------------Ken

 ________________________________

 From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
 on behalf of Stephen Thorpe <stephen_thorpe at yahoo.co.nz>

 Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2018 9:39 PM

 To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu

 Subject: [Taxacom] Arthropods and idiots!

 Firmly in the category of pointless name changes, must be
 Euarthropoda for Arthropoda, which seems to be catching on,
 and has been recently adopted by Wikipedia! It all seems to
 be the result of one paper:

 Ortega‐Hernández, J. 2014 (online) 2016 (print): Making
 sense of ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ stem‐group
 Euarthropoda, with comments on the strict use of the name
 Arthropoda von Siebold, 1848. Biological reviews, 91(1):
 255-273. https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12168

 Needless to say that there are no formal rules which govern
 the appropriateness or otherwise of names at this level,
 and, in the case of Arthropoda, universal usage for hundreds
 of years should be the main consideration!

 Big sigh!

 Stephen

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