Taxonomic triage and the poverty of phylogeny

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Volumn 359, Issue 1444, 2004, Pages 571-583

  Wheeler, Quentin D ^a  

^a Department of Obstetrics Gynecology   (United States)

Author keywords

Cyber infrastructure; Monography; Nomenclature; Phylogeny; Taxonomy

Indexed keywords

NOMENCLATURE; PHYLOGENY; TAXONOMY;

EID: 1942487892     PISSN: 09628436     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2003.1452     Document Type: Review

References (90)

1. Agosti, D. 2003 Encyclopedia of life: should species description equal gene sequence? Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 273.
2. Agosti, D. & Johnson, N. F. 2002 Taxonomists need better access to published data. Nature 417, 222.
3. Anon. 1994 Systematics agenda 2000: charting the biosphere. Technical report. New York: Society of Systematic Biologists, American Society of Plant Taxonomists, Willi Hennig Society, Association of Systematics Collections.
4. Anon. 2002 Genomics and taxonomy for all. Nature 417, 573.
5. Atkins, D. E., Droegemeier, K. K., Feldman, S. I., Garcia-Molina, H., Klein, M. L., Messerschmitt, D. G., Messina, P., Ostriker, J. P. & Wright, M. H. 2003 Revolutionizing science and engineering through cyberinfrastructure. Report of the National Science Foundation blue-ribbon advisory panel on cyberinfrastructure. Arlington, VA: US National Science Foundation.
6. Benton, M. J. 2000 Stems, nodes, crown clades, and rank-free lists: is Linnaeus dead? Biol. Rev. Cambridge Phil. Soc. 75, 633-648.
7. Bisby, F. A., Shimura, J., Ruggiero, M., Edwards, J. & Haeuser, C. 2002 Taxonomy, at the click of a mouse. Nature 418, 367.
8. Blaxter, M. 2003 Counting angels with DNA. Nature 421, 122-124.
9. Blaxter, M. L. 2004 The promise of a DNA taxonomy. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 359, 669-679. (DOI 10.1098/rstb.2003.1447.)
10. Blaxter, M. & Floyd, R. 2003 Molecular taxonomics for biodiversity surveys: already a reality. Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 268-269.
11. Brummitt, R. K. 1997 Taxonomy versus cladonomy, a fundamental controversy in biological systematics. Taxon 46, 723-734.
12. Brummitt, R. K. & Sosef, M. S. M. 1998 Paraphyletic taxa are inherent in Linnaean classification: a reply to Freudenstein. Taxon 47, 411-412.
13. Burkhardt, F. & Smith, S. (eds) 1990 In The correspondence of Charles Darwin, vol. 6, (1856-1857). Cambridge University Press.
14. Carpenter, J. M. 2003 Critique of pure folly. Bot. Rev. 69, 79-92.
15. Coddington, J. A. 1986 Orb webs in 'non-orb weaving' ogre faced spiders (Araneae: Deinopidae): a question of genealogy. Cladistics 2, 53-67.
16. Coddington, J. A. 1988 Cladistic tests of adaptational hypotheses. Cladistics 4, 3-22.
17. Crowson, R. A. 1970 Classification and biology. London: Heinemann.
18. Dalton, R. 2003 Natural history collections in crisis as funding is slashed. Nature 423, 575.
19. Daly, D. K., Cameron, K. & Stevenson, D. 2001 Plant systematics in the age of genomics. Pl. Physiol. 127, 1328-1333.
20. Daly, H. V. 1995 Endangered species: doctoral students in systematic entomology. Am. Entomol. 41, 55-59.
21. Darwin, C. 1859 On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life. London: John Murray.
22. Dominguez, E. & Wheeler, Q. D. 1997 Taxonomic stability is ignorance. Cladistics 13, 367-372.
23. Duderstadt, J. J. (and 14 others) 2002 Preparing for the revolution: information technology and the future of the research university. NRC report. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
24. Eldredge, N. & Cracraft, J. 1980 Phylogenetic patterns and the evolutionary process. New York: Columbia University Press.
25. Farris, J. S. 1979 The information content of the phylogenetic system. Syst. Zool. 28, 483-519.
26. Gaffney, E. S. 1979 An introduction to the logic of phylogeny reconstruction. In Phylogenetic analysis and paleontology (ed. J. Cracraft & N. Eldredge), pp. 79-111. New York: Columbia University Press.
27. Godfray, H. C. J. 2002 Challenges for taxonomy. Nature 417, 17-19.
28. Graybeal, A. 1998 Is it better to add taxa or characters to a difficult phylogenetic problem? Syst. Biol. 47, 9-17.
29. Gropp, R. E. 2003 Are university natural science collections going extinct? BioScience 5, 550.
30. Hammond, P. 1992 Species inventory. In Global biodiversity: status of earth's living resources (ed. B. Groombridge), pp. 17-39. London: Chapman & Hall.
31. Hawksworth, D. L. & Kalin-Arroyo, M. T. 1995 Magnitude and distribution of biodiversity. In Global biodiversity assessment (ed. V. H. Heywood), pp. 107-191. Cambridge University Press.
32. Hebert, P. D. N., Cywinska, A., Ball, S. L. & deWaard, J. R. 2003 Biological identifications through DNA barcodes. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 270, 313-321. (DOI 10.1098/rspb.2002.2218.)
33. Hennig, W. 1966 Phylogenetic systematics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
34. Hillis, D. M. 1998 Taxonomic sampling, phylogenetic accuracy, and investigator bias. Syst. Biol. 4, 3-8.
35. Hillis, D. M., Pollock, D. D., McGuire, J. A. & Zwick, D. J. 2003 Is sparse taxon sampling a problem for phylogenetic inference? Syst. Biol. 52, 124-126.
36. House of Lords 1992 Systematic biology research. Select Committee on Science and Technology, first report. HL Paper 22-I. London: Stationery Office.
37. House of Lords 2002 What on Earth? The threat to the science underpinning conservation. Select Committee on Science and Technology, third report. HL Paper 118(i). London: Stationery Office.
38. Janovec, J. P., Clark, L. G. & Mori, S. A. 2003 Is the neotropical flora ready for the PhyloCode? Bot. Rev. 69, 22-43.
39. Janzen, D. H. 1993 Taxonomy: universal and essential infrastructure for development and management of tropical wild-land biodiversity. In Proceedings of the Norway/UNEP Expert Conference on Biodiversity (ed. O. T. Sandlund & P. J. Schei), pp. 100-113. Trondheim, Norway: Norwegian Institute for Nature Research.
40. Keller, R. A., Boyd, R. N. & Wheeler, Q. D. 2003 The illogical basis of phylogenetic nomenclature. Bot. Rev. 69, 93-110.
41. Knapp, S., Bateman, R. M., Chalmers, N. R., Humphries, C. J., Rainbow, P. S., Smith, A. B., Taylor, P. D., Vane-Wright, R. I. & Wilkinson, M. 2002 Taxonomy needs evolution, not revolution. Nature 419, 559.
42. Knapp, S., Lamas, G., Nic Lughadha, E. & Novarino, G. 2004 Stability or stasis in the names of organisms: the evolving codes of nomenclature. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 359, 611-622. (DOI 10.1098/rstb.2003.1445.)
43. Kojima, J.-I. 2003 Apomorphy-based definition also pinpoints a node and PhyloCode names prevent effective communication. Bot. Rev. 69, 44-58.
44. Linnaeus, C. 1758 Systema naturae per regna tria naturae, secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis., synonymis, locis, 10th edn. Stockholm.
45. Lipscomb, D., Platnick, N. & Wheeler, Q. D. 2003 The intellectual content of taxonomy: a comment on DNA taxonomy. Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 65-66.
46. Mallet, J. & Willmott, K. 2003 Taxonomy: renaissance or tower of Babel? Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 57-59.
47. Mayr, E. 1942 Systematics and the origin of species. New York: Columbia University Press.
48. Mayr, E. 1963 Animal species and evolution. New York: Macmillan.
49. Mayr, E. 1969 Principles of systematic zoology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
50. Mayr, E. 1974 Cladistic analysis or cladistic classification? Z. Zool. Syst. Evol.-forsch. 12, 94-128.
51. Mayr, E. 1982 The growth of biological thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
52. Meier, R. & Dikow, T. 2004 The significance of specimen databases from taxonomic revisions for estimating and mapping the global species diversity of invertebrates and repatriating reliable specimen data. Conserv. Biol. (In the press.)
53. Moore, G. 2003 Should taxon names be explicitly defined? Bot. Rev. 69, 2-21.
54. Nelson, G. & Platnick, N. 1981 Systematics and biogeography: cladistics and vicariance. New York: Columbia University Press.
55. Nixon, K. C. & Carpenter, J. M. 2000 On the other 'phylogenetic systematics'. Cladistics 16, 298-318.
56. Nixon, K. C. & Wheeler, Q. D. 1990 An amplification of the phylogenetic species concept. Cladistics 6, 211-223.
57. Nixon, K. C. & Wheeler, Q. D. 1992 Measures of phylogenetic diversity. In Extinction and phylogeny (ed. M. J. Novacek & Q. D. Wheeler), pp. 216-234. New York: Columbia University Press.
58. Nixon, K. C. & Wheeler, Q. D. 1992 Extinction and the origin of species. In Extinction and phylogeny (ed. M. J. Novacek & Q. D. Wheeler), pp. 119-143. New York: Columbia University Press.
59. Nixon, K. C., Carpenter, J. M. & Stevenson, D. W. 2003 The PhyloCode is fatally flawed, and the 'Linnaean' system can easily be fixed. Bot. Rev. 69, 111-120.
60. Novacek, M. J. 1992 Fossils, topologies, missing data, and the higher level phylogeny of eutherian mammals. Syst. Biol. 41, 58-73.
61. O'Hara, R. J. 1997 Population thinking and tree thinking in systematics. Zool. Scripta 26, 323-329.
62. Orr, D. W. 2002 The nature of design. Ecology, culture, and human intention. Oxford University Press.
63. Prance, G. T. 1995 Systematics, conservation and sustainable development. Biodiv. Conserv. 4, 490-500.
64. Qiu, Y.-L., Lee, J., Bernasconi-Quadroni, F., Soltis, D. E., Soltis, P. S., Zanis, M., Zimmer, E. A., Chen, Z., Savolainen, V. & Chase, M. W. 1999 The earliest angiosperms: evidence from mitochondrial, plastid and nuclear genes. Nature 402, 404-407.
65. Rodman, J. E. & Cody, J. H. 2003 The taxonomic impediment overcome: NSF's Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET) as a model. Syst. Biol. 52, 428-435.
66. Schoch, R. M. 1986 Phylogeny reconstruction in paleontology. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
67. Schrock, J. R. 1989 Pre-graduate education in systematics and organismic biology. Assoc. Systematics Collections Newslett. 17, 53-55.
68. Schuh, R. T. 2000 Biological systematics: principles and applications. New York: Cornell University Press.
69. Schuh, R. T. 2003 The Linnaean system and its 250-year persistence. Bot. Rev. 69, 59-78.
70. Seberg, O., Humphries, C. J., Knapp, S., Stevenson, D. W., Petersen, G., Scharff, N. & Andersen, N. M. 2003 Shortcuts in systematics? A commentary on DNA-based taxonomy. Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 63-65.
71. Simpson, G. G. 1961 Principles of animal taxonomy. New York: Columbia University Press.
72. Smith, G. F., Steenkamp, Y., Klopper, R. R., Siebert, S. J. & Arnold, T. H. 2003 The price of collecting life. Nature 422, 375-376.
73. Tautz, D., Arctander, P., Minelli, A., Thomas, R. H. & Vogler, A. P. 2003 A plea for DNA taxonomy. Trends Ecol. Evol. 18, 70-74.
74. Vane-Wright, R. I., Humphries, C. J. & Williams, P. H. 1991 What to protect? Systematics and the agony of choice. Biol. Conserv. 55, 235-254.
75. Wanntorp, H.-E., Brooks, D. R., Nilsson, T., Nylin, S., Ronquist, F., Stearns, S. C. & Wedell, N. 1990 Phylogenetic approaches in ecology. Oikos 57, 119-132.
76. Wenzel, J. W. 1992 Behavioral homology and phylogeny. A. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 23, 261-281.
77. Wheeler, Q. D. 1995a Systematics and biodiversity: policies at higher levels. BioSci. 45(6), 21-28.
78. Wheeler, Q. D. 1995b Systematics, the scientific basis for inventories. Biodiv. Conserv. 4, 476-489.
79. Wheeler, Q. D. 1995c The 'old systematics': classification and phylogeny. In Biology, phylogeny, and classification of Coleoptera: papers celebrating the 80th birthday of Roy A. Crowson (ed. J. Pakaluk & S. A. Slipinski), pp. 31-62. Warszawa, Poland: Muzeum I Instytut Zoologii PAN.
80. Wheeler, Q. D. 2001 Clever Caroli: lessons from Linnaeus. Pl. Press 4, 14-15.
81. Wheeler, Q. D. & Cracraft, J. 1996 Taxonomic preparedness: are we ready to meet the biodiversity challenge? In Biodiversity II: understanding and protecting our biological resource (ed. E. O. Wilson, M. Kudla-Reaka & D. Wilson), pp. 435-446. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences Press.
82. Wheeler, Q. D. & Meier, R. (eds) 2000 Species concepts and phylogenetic theory: a debate. New York: Columbia University Press.
83. Wheeler, Q. D. & Platnick, N. I. 2000 The phylogenetic species concept (sensu Wheeler and Platnick). In Species concepts and phylogenetic theory: a debate (ed. Q. D. Wheeer & R. Meier), pp. 55-69. New York: Columbia University Press.
84. Wheeler, W. C. 1992 Extinction, sampling, and molecular phylogenetics. In Extinction and phylogeny (ed. M. J. Novacek & Q. D. Wheeler), pp. 205-215. New York: Columbia University Press.
85. Whiting, M. F., Bradler, S. & Maxwell, T. 2003 Loss and recovery of wings in stick insects. Nature 421, 264-267.
86. Williams, P. H., Humphries, C. J. & Vane-Wright, R. I. 1991 Measuring biodiversity: taxonomic relatedness for conservation priorities. Aust. Syst. Bot. 4, 665-679.
87. Wiley, E. O. 1981 Phylogenetics: the theory and practice of phylogenetic systematics. New York: Wiley.
88. Wilson, E. O. 1984 Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
89. Wilson, E. O. 1985 The biodiversity crisis: a challenge to science. Issues Sci. Tech. 20-29.
90. Wilson, E. O. 1992 The diversity of life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.