[CPN] Article 21

[Richard Olmstead]

Nico - 

Read through the whole thread.  This is a response to an admittedly tangential suggestion by David Marjanovic, which has not received any support from other committee members.

Dick



On Mar 18, 2013, at 1:33 PM, Cellinese,Nico wrote:

> I am having a really hard time to understand why we need to discuss or refer to species concept or even imply the value of a unified species concept when in fact we are dealing with nomenclatural issues. We are naming taxa = clades and whether people draw an analogy between these and 'species' should be none of our business.
> 
> Nico
> 
> 
> On Mar 18, 2013, at 1:48 PM, de Queiroz, Kevin wrote:
> 
>> Yes, of course I'm aware of that issue.  However, I still think it is more
>> appropriate and useful to view those differences as criteria that exist
>> within the context of a single general concept of species.  I've used a
>> cartographic analogy to describe this situation previously (see de
>> Queiroz, 1999, The general lineage concept of species and the defining
>> properties of the species category, p. 64-65):  in the context of the
>> single general species concept, the various properties that are
>> responsible for the differences among traditional species definitions
>> ("concepts") can be viewed as criteria for deciding which species to
>> represent in a taxonomy that function analogously to criteria that are
>> used to decide which population centers to represent on a map.  See also
>> O'Hara (1993, Systematic generalization, historical fate, and the species
>> problem).
>> 
>> In addition, I've argued in a different paper (de Queiroz, 2005, A unified
>> concept of species and its consequences for the future of taxonomy) that
>> we should not over-emphasize one or another species criterion (as implied
>> in David M's suggestion that authors should state which species "concept"
>> they have adopted in the protologue) but rather list ALL of the relevant
>> properties that the species in question is inferred both to possess and
>> not to possess.  See the section "Current Taxonomic Conventions are
>> Inadequate" (bottom p. 209 ­ top p. 210) in the cited paper.
>> 
>> 
>> On 3/17/13 2:35 PM, "David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic at gmx.at> wrote:
>> 
>>> Points taken, but...
>>> 
>>>> (I also don't think that most  biologists really adopt different
>>>> species concepts, though they tend to confuse operational criteria
>>>> with concepts).
>>> 
>>> Different criteria lead to different results. At our 2nd meeting (Yale
>>> 2006), somebody (Yannick Bertrand, I think) gave a presentation, saying
>>> that there are from 101 to 249 endemic bird species in Mexico, depending
>>> on what one means by "species". That's what I mean.
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>> 
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> 
> <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
> Nico Cellinese, Ph.D.
> Assistant Curator, Botany & Informatics
> Joint Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
> 
> Florida Museum of Natural History
> University of Florida
> 354 Dickinson Hall, PO Box 117800
> Gainesville, FL 32611-7800, U.S.A.
> Tel. 352-273-1979
> Fax 352-846-1861
> http://cellinese.blogspot.com/
> 
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Richard Olmstead
Professor of Biology and Herbarium Curator, Burke Museum
Department of Biology
Box 355325
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195

office: 423 Hitchcock Hall
phone: 206-543-8850





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