[Taxacom] Save Order Bromeliales!!! (was: InternationalCommission....)

[Richard Zander]

What can I say, Ken? APG is the bugbear of our times, not because it is all bad. That would be too much to ask. It mixes together plenty of good, new advances with lumping or splitting because of artificial systems of classification, i.e. holophyly, as you say, and grouping by molecular continuity and splits (rather than a combination of that plus clear cases of macroevolution).

Linnaean classification does not directly represent either cladistic nesting or macroevolution, but we can use its nesting and contiguity (read "lists") of names to group evolutionarily related taxa without eliminating names because of paraphyly. Thus, the problem that Linnaean classification does not directly reflect processes in nature can work in its favor by providing a neutral ground representing a diversity of apprehensions of evolutionary processes.

??? 

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Richard H. Zander
Missouri Botanical Garden, PO Box 299, St. Louis, MO 63166-0299 USA  
Web sites: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/ and http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/bfna/bfnamenu.htm
Modern Evolutionary Systematics Web site: http://www.mobot.org/plantscience/resbot/21EvSy.htm

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Kenneth Kinman
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 10:13 PM
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: [Taxacom] Save Order Bromeliales!!! (was: InternationalCommission....)

Hi Richard,
      While I realize that your observation (that such elimination of paraphyletic taxa could be a boon to "elderly taxonomists") was offered with a bit of sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek, it is certainly no laughing matter.  And actually, phylogeneticists are not only eliminating paraphyletic taxa, but creating even larger numbers of new clade names at a rate that even I find alarming (I love clades, but formally naming them with the slightest bit of new data can be terribly premature and destabilizing).  Therefore we have large numbers of new names to digest, many which will not stand the test of time, at the same time that perfectly good paraphyletic taxa are being thrown on the garbage heap
(which we agree is not helpful).      
      Anyway, I can't help but wonder if the abandonment of the perfectly good Order Bromeliales (among others) into APG's bloated Order Poales was an attempt to avoid potential paraphyly (perhaps the same for their bloated Order Malpighiales).  The Order Bromeliales continues to be recognized by large numbers of people (biologists and gardeners alike), and yet the APG seems unwillingly to reverse any of their extreme lumping (even that one).  Are they afraid of paraphyly jumping up and biting them in the behind, or are they just intransigent (unwilling to admit they made a mistake)?  Once it was shown that Order Hydatellales (which they also sunk into Poales) was not even a monocot), it was a perfect opportunity to reassess the wisdom of their overlumping, but instead they just ejected it apparently without
reevaluating the wisdom of a bloated Order Poales (even without it).     
      Anyway, I see no good reason to continue lumping either Order Bromeliales or Order Typhales within such a heterogenous and monstrous Order Poales.  They are distinct not only in morphology, but molecularly as well, so there is no excuse for it.  It is time for APG to reverse at least one of their excessive overlumpings, and this one is at the top of
my list for such a reversal.       
      -----------Ken Kinman