Re: NANFA-- species concepts (long)

D. Martin Moore (archimedes_at_master.localink4.com)
Mon, 24 Jan 2000 22:32:40 -0600

> As for Chris' point about the loss of information from the trinomial:
> There's actually several different species of <Siphateles> that are
> being elevated out of "<bicolor>." They are not particularly closely
> related! There's no way to tell that from any trinomial.
>
> In short, the appearance of more information in a trinomial is
> illusory. As for my own research on western mottled sculpins, it
> appears that populations of mottled sculpin west of the Continental
> Divide might be more closely related to things like <Cottus rhotheus>
> and <Cottus extensus> than they are to "real" (Ohio River) <Cottus
> bairdi>. <Cottus "bairdi fumorum"> from the Smokies may be more
> closely related to <Cottus carolinae> than it is to other "<bairdi>."
> Ray, this is why your beloved "Roloffia" was sunk. It's not about
> splitting for splitting's sake- when done right, it provides a
> critical framework for information retrieval.

This sounds to me like the organisms were misclassified in the first
place, rather than a failure of the trinomial system. (Pardon my
naive and simple ways-I was taught the BSC back in the 80's :-) )

Prost,

Martin
------
"Cry to it, nuncle. as the cockney did to the eels when she put
'em i' the paste alive; she knapped 'em o' the coxcombs with a
stick, and cried 'Down wantons, down!'"

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