Biological Systematics

The State of the Art

By: Alessandro Minelli, Minelli

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Paperback | 25 August 1998

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To some potential readers of this book the description of Biological System atics as an art may seem outdated and frankly wrong. For most people art is subjective and unconstrained by universal laws. While one picture, play or poem may be internally consistent comparison between different art products is meaningless except by way of the individual artists. On the other hand modern Biological Systematics - particularly phenetics and cladistics - is offered as objective and ultimately governed by universal laws. This implies that classifications of different groups of organisms, being the products of systematics, should be comparable irrespective of authorship. Throughout this book Minelli justifies his title by developing the theme that biological classifications are, in fact, very unequal in their expressions of the pattern and processes of the natural world. Specialists are imbibed with their own groups and tend to establish a consensus of what constitutes a species or a genus, or whether it should be desirable to recognize sub species, cultivars etc. Ornithologists freely recognize subspecies and rarely do bird genera contain more than 10 species. On the other hand some coleopterists and botanists work with genera with over 1500 species. This asymmetry may reflect a biological reality; it may express a working practicality, or simply an historical artefact (older erected genera often contain more species). Rarely are these phenomena questioned.

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Non-Fiction Science Biology, Life Sciences Life Sciences in General Taxonomy & Systematics Medicine Medicine in General Engineering & Technology Environmental Science Environmental Monitoring

Foreword
Preface
Systems and classifications
Systematics and taxonomy	p. 3
Classification versus system	p. 4
Biological classifications from Andrea Cesalpino to the New Systematics	p. 5
Evolutionary systematics	p. 7
Numerical taxonomy	p. 7
Hennig's phylogenetic systematics	p. 8
Contrasting systematic schools	p. 9
Towards a natural system of living organisms	p. 11
Some steps in comparative biology
Characters as 'symptoms' for recognizing taxa	p. 15
Characters for choice	p. 16
Homology	p. 18
Homoplasy	p. 23
Character coding	p. 24
Monophyly, paraphyly, polyphyly	p. 25
Determining character polarity	p. 28
Cladograms and trees	p. 32
Numerical methods for the reconstruction of phylogeny	p. 33
Ancestors	p. 37
Fossils and cladistic analysis	p. 38
Grouping and ranking	p. 39
Phylogeny versus adaptation	p. 42
Biochemical and molecular systematics
Micromolecules	p. 44
Macromolecules	p. 46
The species
Species concepts	p. 62
Taxonomic diversity within the species	p. 72
Hybrids	p. 75
Speciation	p. 76
Resources and media
Human resources	p. 87
Institutions	p. 89
Literature	p. 92
Nomenclature	p. 96
The inventory of natural diversity
How many species do we know?	p. 107
Continuing discovery	p. 125
How many species are still to be discovered?	p. 126
Towards the system
Kingdoms and phyla	p. 130
'Prokaryotes'	p. 133
The major groups of eukaryotes	p. 135
Fungi	p. 137
'Protists'	p. 139
Metazoans	p. 140
Placozoans	p. 142
Sponges	p. 142
Cnidarians	p. 143
Ctenophorans	p. 144
Platyhelminths	p. 144
Gnathostomulids	p. 145
Mesozoans	p. 145
Aschelminths	p. 145
Pogonophorans	p. 146
Annelids	p. 147
Molluscs	p. 148
Arthropods, excluding insects	p. 149
Insects	p. 153
Onychophorans, tardigrades and pentastomids	p. 154
Bryozoans, brachiopods and phoronids	p. 155
Deuterostomes, excluding chordates	p. 155
Chordates, excluding vertebrates	p. 156
Vertebrates	p. 157
Green plants, excluding angiosperms	p. 164
Angiosperms	p. 165
Interviews on the daily work of systematists: problems and trends
Specialist groups as natural groups	p. 168
Genera	p. 169
Species	p. 173
Infraspecific taxa	p. 176
Characters	p. 180
From field work to monograph	p. 182
The unequal distribution of taxonomic diversity
The very large genera	p. 185
Size distributions of higher taxa	p. 194
Domesticated animals and cultivated plants
Taxonomy and nomenclature of domesticated animals	p. 198
Taxonomy and nomenclature of cultivated plants	p. 202
Some dangerous trends, and a hope for the future	p. 207
App. 1 Zoological checklists and catalogues	p. 215
App. 2 Mohn's (1984) general classification of living organisms	p. 218
App. 3 'Provisional classification' of the Protista, according to Corliss	p. 221
App. 4 Phyla and classes of the Protoctista (Corliss' Protista) according to Margulis et al. (1990)	p. 222
App. 5 Mohn's (1984) classification of animals	p. 224
App. 6 Nielsen's (1985) classification of the Animalia	p. 226
App. 7 Ehler's (1985) system of Plathelminthes	p. 228
App. 8 Jamieson's (1988) system of the Oligochaeta	p. 229
App. 9 Salvini-Plawen's (1980) classification of the Phylum Mollusca	p. 231
App. 10 Haszprunar's (1986) classification of gastropods	p. 233
App. 11 Weygoldt and Paulus's (1979) system of the Chelicerata	p. 234
App. 12 Shultz's (1990) system of the Chelicerata	p. 235
App. 13 Schram's (1986) classification of the Crustacea	p. 236
App. 14 Starobogatov's (1988) classification of the Crustacea	p. 237
App. 15 Hennig's (1969) system of the Insecta	p. 239
App. 16 Hennig's (1985) system of the Chordata	p. 241
App. 17 The major groups of Chordata according to Nelson (1969)	p. 243
App. 18 Rosen et al.'s (1981) classification of gnathostome vertebrates	p. 245
App. 19 Carroll's (1987) classification of vertebrates, including both extinct and living forms	p. 246
App. 20 Lauder and Liem's (1983) classification of living bony fishes	p. 252
App. 21 Sibley and Ahlquist's (1990) classification of birds	p. 253
App. 22 Bremer's (1985) cladistic classification of green plants	p. 262
App. 23 Dahlgren's (1989a,b) classification of the flowering plants	p. 263
References	p. 270
Author index	p. 334
Subject index	p. 346
Taxonomic index	p. 351
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Biological Systematics

The State of the Art

At a Glance

Paperback

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