[Taxacom] DNA only descriptions

[Sergio Vargas]

Hi Kim,

yes I understood, I think most taxacomers understand that all
available evidence is the best evidence. The "problem", curiously I
think, seems to arise not among taxonomists (with exceptions as
always) but among molecular biologists. Seriously speaking making a
PCR is rather different than describing a species (traditionally
speaking). This is a point I try to make clear to all taxonomists I
meet, if you want a good phylogeny of "your" group, you have two
option you do the phylogeny your self or you let others to do the
phylogeny, you have to decide who knows the group better...

on the resolution point... I tend to think, molecular phylogenies tend
to be more resolved than "cladistic" ones because 1. you have more
characters, 2. the substitution model extracts information from sites
that would be uninformative in a cladistic analysis... don't know just
a perception.

cheers

sergio

-- 
Sergio Vargas R., M.Sc.
Molecular Geo- and Palaeobiology Lab.
Dept. of Geo- & Environmental Sciences, Palaeontology and Geobiology
LMU München
Richard-Wagner Str. 10
80333 Munich, Germany
tel. +49 89 2180 17929
s.vargas at lrz.uni-muenchen.de
sergio.vargasr at ecci.ucr.ac.cr