[Taxacom] Plantae (was: New paper on fungal higher classification)

[Kenneth Kinman]

     I also just went to the IUCN website, and couldn't find results for either Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta.  Turns out it only gives results for Magnoliopsida.  They need to build a better search, so that major synonyms are included.


      The problem with Fungi and Plantae is that they have many circumscriptions today.  Some restrict Plantae to just the Embryophyta, while others go clear out to Glaucophyta and Rhodophyta, and other circumscriptions in between.  I would hope a significant proportion of biologists know the meaning of Metaphyta, Metazoa, and Eumycota, all three of these have been around for many decades.  They are Latin terms which clearly indicate their meaning.  I see that Ruggiero et al.'s 2015 classification of life has Metazoa in parentheses after Animalia.  Perhaps because Animalia is sometimes used for just metazoans, but other times also including choanozoans or even other protozoans.


      Anyway, here is a weblink to a fairly recent paper on fungal classification that names an important clade that had no name (thus definitely worth publishing).  And they restrict the Fungi to the true fungi (i.e. Eumycota):    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3975115/figure/F5/


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


________________________________
From: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 11:44 AM
To: Kenneth Kinman
Cc: taxacom
Subject: RE: Plantae (was: New paper on fungal higher classification)


Just been on the IUCN web site and searched for ‘Metaphyta’ ... guess what: ‘Your search yielded no results‘. 99.999999999% of Homo sapiens call these organisms Plants (or Plantae to ‘Latinize’ the word) and a similar proportion of mycologists call the organism they study ‘Fungi’. I see no reason to change these well-known / well-established names even though the circumscription of the taxon may have changed over time.



Paul

From: Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com>
Sent: 22 May 2018 17:27
To: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org>
Subject: Plantae (was: New paper on fungal higher classification)



Hi Paul,

       I've never liked the taxon name Plantae either.  I prefer Metaphyta (for higher plants) and Metazoa (for higher animals), and Eumycota (for true fungi).  These holophyletic taxa are very stable in content, and the names are appropriate.

      Plantae has been applied to so many different combinations of taxa that you don't really know what is meant  without some explanation.  So instead of saying Plantae, and you mean Metaphyta, just say Metaphyta.  If you mean something more inclusive, just say Charophyta and Metaphyta, or the slightly broader Chlorophyta and Metaphyta.  Then you don't need to worry about explaining which Plantae you might be using or being misunderstood.

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



________________________________

From: Paul Kirk <P.Kirk at kew.org<mailto:P.Kirk at kew.org>>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 2:21 AM
To: Kenneth Kinman; Tony Rees
Cc: taxacom
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] New paper on fungal higher classification



If the logic to rename the Fungi is sound then the same logic should apply to the Plants, because Linnaeus included the Fungi in the polyphyletic Plants ... any suggestions from the botanists (sensu stricto, excluding mycologists).

Paul
-----Original Message-----
From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>> On Behalf Of Kenneth Kinman
Sent: 22 May 2018 02:15
To: Tony Rees <tonyrees49 at gmail.com<mailto:tonyrees49 at gmail.com>>
Cc: taxacom <taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu<mailto:taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] New paper on fungal higher classification

Hi Tony,

        I would recommend following the classification of Ruggiero et al., 2015, not only in the ranks used, but also in restricting "Fungi" (to what is probably better called Eumycota).  They say: "Here we take the view that the best demarcation between Protozoa and Fungi lies immediately before the origin of the chitinous wall around vegetative fungal cells and associated loss of phagotrophy. We therefore include microsporidia and rozellids in Protozoa (vegetatively wall-less, typically phagotrophs) not Fungi (vegetatively walled osmotrophs).


       I believe that (restricting Fungi to Eumycota) is what databases like EOL are doing, although I would also encourage them use the name Eumycota, rather than Fungi (which has had a horrible history of polyphyletic dumping).   Personally, I see the inflationary splitting in this 2018 paper as taxonomic noise which probably does more harm than good.  But perhaps there is something of value in there somewhere buried in all the inflationary noise.


       Furthermore, I would add that expanding classifications of Fungi/Eumycota beyond the more traditional bounds would likely result in clashes (and confusion) between the Zoological and Botanical codes.  Would probably be best to nip such problems in the bud.

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