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Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 22:33:46 +0200
From: Torsten Eriksson <Torsten@bergianska.se>
To: PhyloCode@ouvaxa.cats.ohiou.edu
Subject: ssp var f sp
'scuse the rambling message:
If "species" is a difficult subject, dealing with bits and pieces of
these "species" may be completely elusive. I guess that most people
want to keep species because they are used to "them" and they think
that the term "species" is meaningful in some way.
An alternative might be to just name clades, all the way down to
where there are no more clades - just individuals with reticulating
relationships (if they're sexual). De Queiroz and Donoghue (I guess
it was) argued about "exclusive groups" and this might be what I'm
aiming at. A group where all are each other's closest relatives, but
not all descended from a common ancestor necessarily.
If such entities as I envision above were named as "species", why
would we need anything inside of that? If we find a clade within this
entity I'd say we made a mistake in the first place. The "species"
was actually a clade and my take on that is that it should keep the
name it had. Let the newly discovered "species" get a name.
Now, as I work in a Botanical Garden I realise that there are
"things" which people want to name which may be inside of such a
"species" group. There are lots of selected individuals with
especially nice colours or other characteristics which make them
valuable as cultivars. People name them cultivate them and sell them.
Today these get names like: Anemone nemorosa 'Plena'. OK with me as
long as it has nothing to do with hierarchy. The same goes with
varieties and forms.
Subspecies, on the other hand, have commonly been treated as
distinguishable geographic parts of a species which grade into each
other. That is, they're treated as something real. In other cases
it's just species which differ in too few characters to "merit"
species rank (mega common among lumper/splitters and birders to worry
about these).
In my view, the latter kind might just be named like anything
else, clade or "species". The first kind... how could you name a
grade? I'm not really sure that kind of variation should be named,
just described.
In short: name clades down to the least inclusive exclusive groups if
needed. Lower than that: Name individuals like 'Plena'.
/Torsten
P.S.
Kevin: If you're keeping your views secret, why bother letting us know?
At 15.21 -0400 01-10-24, Kevin de Queiroz wrote:
>I'm hoping to address this issue in great detail in a future paper.
>
>Kevin de Queiroz
>
>>>> David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> 10/24/01 15:07 PM >>>
>What is going to become of subspecies in phylogenetic nomenclature? Should
>we simply drop them? Should we define them as clades within species?
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Torsten Eriksson email: torsten@bergianska.se
The Bergius Foundation
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Box 50017 tel: +46 816 3858
104 05 Stockholm fax: +46 861 290 05
Sweden
URL: http://www.bergianska.se/personal/TorstenE/