[NHCOLL-L:4884] RE: open for comment

[Bryant, James]

With respect to the biological species concept, Malcolm, I entirely concur. Systematic biology is, ultimately, a "tool kit" for use in examining the life histories and biogeography of the living world. It surprises me how often the importance of the biospecies principle gets lost in discussions of systematics, both classical and genetic. I agree with E. O. Wilson when he says that solutions to problems like climate change and energy conservation can all be viewed more clearly through issues related to biodiversity, but we have to be sure what diversity we're talking about, a great deal of it needing to be protected and conserved before we even have the luxury of worrying how to classify it.


James M. Bryant

Curator of Natural History

Museum Department, City of Riverside

3580 Mission Inn Avenue

Riverside, CA 92501

(951) 826-5273

(951) 369-4970 FAX

jbryant at riversideca.gov

________________________________
From: malcolm.mccallum.tamut at gmail.com [mailto:malcolm.mccallum.tamut at gmail.com] On Behalf Of malcolm McCallum
Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 6:34 AM
To: Bryant, James
Cc: nhcoll-l at lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [NHCOLL-L:4875] open for comment

This will certainly be a useful publication if they meet the ICZN guidelines.  I know the ICZN used to require hard copies be printed for the description of new species to be valid, but I think they recently changed this.  Zootaxa has been running an online journal for years and it is currently (or last I heard) the largest journal in systematics.

The thing that bothers me is that just naming a species based on its phylogeny is only a first step.  You cannot conserve a species any more than you can digest a book's plot by simply knowing its name and position in the organizational scheme.  There is so much more to know.  If the life histories of these organisms goes unstudied, then having a name does little other than indicates about as much as that friend of yours who has collected tons of books and never read a one.  There is so much more to the biology of an organism than its position in the systematic scheme.

malcolm McCallum
On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Bryant, James <JBRYANT at riversideca.gov<mailto:JBRYANT at riversideca.gov>> wrote:
So the NMNH in Washington is touting the launching of two new on-line journals, Zookeys (perhaps should be Zoökeys?) and Phytokeys (see http://newsdesk.si.edu/releases/smithsonian-scientists-address-world-biodiversity-crisis-innovative-online-publications). Looks like the idea is to get taxonomic revisions and updates into "print" as rapidly as possible. The editors claim this will not only serve the profession but help preserve biodiversity by "providing the public with free access to this vital information". Any thoughts on the merits of this approach?


James M. Bryant

Curator of Natural History

Museum Department, City of Riverside

3580 Mission Inn Avenue

Riverside, CA 92501

(951) 826-5273

(951) 369-4970 FAX

jbryant at riversideca.gov<mailto:jbryant at riversideca.gov>




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Malcolm L. McCallum
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Herpetological Conservation and Biology

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