The nature of cladistics [was: Whooper; Canadian geese split; paraphyly]

[Thomas G. Lammers]

At 12:53 AM 11/18/2004, Curtis Clark wrote:
>They are divorced as well from community ecology, big-bang cosmology, or
>organometallic chemistry. I expect students to know that evolutionary
>processes are not uniform at all levels of organization

I don't understand.  Are you saying that when someone performs a
phylogenetic analysis of the species comprising a genus, that he or she is
NOT attempting to reconstruct patterns due to population-level
phenomena?  Are you saying that the two forks of a cladogram at this level
do NOT represent the establishment of some sort of reproductive isolation
between the sets of populations represented?

>I believe I should be able to expect the same of my colleagues.

And I thought I could expect courtesy from mine.


Thomas G. Lammers, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor and Curator of the Herbarium (OSH)
Department of Biology and Microbiology
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8640 USA

e-mail:       lammers at uwosh.edu
phone:      920-424-1002
fax:           920-424-1101

Plant systematics; classification, nomenclature, evolution, and
biogeography of the Campanulaceae s. lat.

Webpages:
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/Lammers.htm
http://www.uwosh.edu/departments/biology/herbarium/herbarium.html
http://www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Resort/7156/lammers.html
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