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

[Kenneth Kinman]

Hi Tony,

      I usually side with Cavalier-Smith in most of his classifications and rankings.  But recognizing his very broad Kingdom Plantae (rather than a Kingdom Metaphyta) is not one of them.  The importance and diversity of angiosperms is so fundamental that its traditional Phylum status would be preferable, and I hope future Ruggiero classifications might make changes in that area of its classification.  Tracheophyta is better classified as a Superphylum with three Phyla (one of which is Magnoliophyla).


       And as I have stated before, I too was never enamoured with his Kingdom Chromista.  And changes in circumscription of a Kingdom Chromista seem to indicate it was probably not one of his better ideas.  In any case, I would urge IUCN to recognize major synonyms in its search results.  There is no excuse for a failure to show results for Metazoa.

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


________________________________
From: Tony Rees <tonyrees49 at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2018 7:26 PM
To: Kenneth Kinman
Cc: Paul Kirk; taxacom
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Plantae (was: New paper on fungal higher classification)

Hi Ken, all,

The IUCN has (e.g.) angiosperms under Kingdom Plantae, Phylum Tracheophyta, Class Magnoliopsida, which is consistent with the Catalogue of Life current (2017) edition (classification based on Ruggiero et al., 2015 in this area at least).  Angiospermae is a "superclass" in that classification (not a "Linnaean rank") and Magnoliophyta is no longer recognised at phylum level. So I don't think you can criticize IUCN on that score. Since Ruggiero et al.'s classification is supposed to be reviewed and adjusted at intervals with new information, at least if other systems are compliant with it there is a level of consistency and interoperability introduced, with a likelihood of tracking additional taxonomic changes in the future. Whether folk agree with, and/or are familiar with, that classification is a different issue of course.

I am not particularly enamoured with "Chromista", for example, but have introduced it into my own system within the last couple of years for exactly the reasons stated above. At some point it makes sense to go with the "critical mass" where this exists, until the latter changes at least.

Regards - Tony



On 23 May 2018 at 03:49, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com<mailto:kinman at hotmail.com>> wrote:

     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.