[Taxacom] Names and naming of dark taxa

[Richard Zander]

Well, Henrik wrote: “Furthermore, a name can be correct for some taxon or a synonym of another name depending on the specific taxonomy. If it is required that taxa be monophyletic, then changes in the taxonomy should be expected due to changes in the understanding of evolutionary relationships. Even if this stabilises with time as better estimates of evolutionary relationships are obtained, there may still be conflicts as to what clades are considered as taxa and at what taxonomic level.”

Note “clades” and “monophyletic”. The problem described by Henrik is simply that of using sequences without clear connection to expressed traits united as an evolution-based taxon. Using cladistics to try to deal with the problem is problematic.



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Richard H. Zander
Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri – 63110 – USA
richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/

From: John Grehan [mailto:calabar.john at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2018 2:20 PM
To: Richard Zander
Cc: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Names and naming of dark taxa

How is the problem described by Henrik created by cladistics?

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On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 3:14 PM, Richard Zander <Richard.Zander at mobot.org<mailto:Richard.Zander at mobot.org>> wrote:
Dark taxa? How does one determine the difference between dark mutations and dark taxa? There is no innate taxon criterion in cladistics. Cluster analysis to determine how different sequences group? Is a group of similar sequences a taxon? Does a group of similar sequences imply an evolutionary process involved, maybe some evolutionary trajectory through time?

A dark taxon in a cladistic cellar at molecular night is hard to envision.


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Richard H. Zander
Missouri Botanical Garden – 4344 Shaw Blvd. – St. Louis – Missouri – 63110 – USA
richard.zander at mobot.org<mailto:richard.zander at mobot.org>
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/

-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>] On Behalf Of Henrik Nilsson
Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2018 11:43 AM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
Subject: [Taxacom] Names and naming of dark taxa

Here’s a recent commentary on names and naming of dark taxa:

https://mycokeys.pensoft.net/article/24376/

Abstract:
A growing proportion of fungal species and lineages are known only from sequence data and cannot be linked to any physical specimen or resolved taxonomic name. Such fungi are often referred to as “dark taxa” or “dark matter fungi”. As they lack a taxonomic identity in the form of a name, they are regularly ignored in many important contexts, for example in legalisation and species counts. It is therefore very urgent to find a system to also deal with these fungi. Here, issues relating to the taxonomy and nomenclature of dark taxa are discussed and a number of questions that the mycological community needs to consider before deciding on what system/s to implement are highlighted.

Best wishes,

Henrik Nilsson
University of Gothenburg

--

http://www2.dpes.gu.se/staff/hennil/


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