Re: New alligatoroid paper as example for amateur cladists

[chris brochu <cbrochu@fmppr.fmnh.org>]

First, many thanks to Jonathan Wagner for his kind thoughts.  Seriously
- if anyone finds a mistake or error in what I did, let me know.

Regarding phylogenetic definitions of genera - though I've done it in
two separate publications, part of me has misgivings.  Clearly, if
species can be paraphyletic and if all species have a generic name, than
generic names can also be paraphyletic.

I am beginning to regard the "genus" as like a family surname - not
really a "taxon," but something carrying taxonomic information.

As for this:



Philidor11@aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 7/5/99 2:51:20 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> znc14@TTACS.TTU.EDU writes:
> 
> << The author concludes that he has found certain taxa to be monophyletic,
> yet these taxa were defined as monophyletic taxa. I may have missed a
> sentence or two explaining this. >>
> 
> I think you did.  The word 'yet' implies a contrast, but I don't see one.  If
> you substitute the word 'and' then you have an a=a observation.  I follow
> your subsequent definition of monophyletic taxa among dinosaurs, but I can't
> connect it back to this observation.  My best guess at the moment is that you
> mean different classification approaches lead to the same result, but I would
> like to be sure.


I'm not sure which specific cases y'all are talking about, but there are
two reasons throughout the paper for a name to be "defined" and
subsequently "discovered:"

1.  The name is in the literature, and the analysis supports its
monophyly.  Diplocynodon, Alligator, and Alligatoridae are examples.

2.  The name is new to the analysis, but since I had a discussion of
phylogenetic taxonomy at the beginning, it made sense (at least to me)
to introduce all new names up-front, in one place.  I felt justified in
doing this because two earlier papers presented more-or-less the same
tree, so the "results" weren't really "new."

Hope this helps,


chris




-- 
----------------------
Christopher A. Brochu
Department of Geology
Field Museum of Natural History
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Chicago, IL 60605

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