Stability of names...

Niklas Wahlberg niklas.wahlberg at helsinki.fi
Wed Sep 20 01:35:46 EDT 2000


Hello everybody,
   Thought I would start up a discussion on a controversial subject: how
should species be named (scientifically speaking).


Michael Gochfeld wrote:
> 
> There are additional snide remarks that the AOU committee deserves.
> 
> Names that have been well established for 50+ years (two generations of
> scientists) are changed because of generic lumping or splitting (very
> subjective), losing track of the fact that the reason we like scientific
> names is because of their communication virtues.


This reminds me of a paper in last year's Systematic Biology by Cantino
et al (Syst Biol 48:790-807), in which the authors are out to trash the
Linnean hierarchical system because it is not stable. I remember that my
first reading of the paper made me see red, and now my second reading
was no less repulsive.
   The gist of their paper is that the Linnean hierarchical system
forces one to have a genus name for each species (not to mention the
higher levels such as family, order, class, etc). Since genera are not
comparable across different species groups, they should be abandoned
completely. For instance if we humans were insects we would surely
belong to the same genus as chimps and gorillas. Further, species in
some genera are millions of years old, whereas species in other genera
are only hundreds of thousands of years old.
   The solution of Cantino et al? They present no less than 13
alternative ways to name species, grouped into 3 groups. In group one,
the current name of any species should be carved into stone and to
indicate this (taxonomy hits the internet age) the species name could be
represented as Parus.atricapilla (to take the black-capped chickadee as
an example). Or even better, as parusatricapilla (I did not forget the
space). This name would not change even if new information was gotten on
the relationships of species in the group.
   The group 2 of Cantino et al does not differ from today's practice of
making hierarchical ranks monophyletic. The Parus in the name
Parus.atricapilla would be a clade address, if atricapilla were to go to
another clade in some phylogenetic analysis, the name Parus would have
to change. Sound familiar?
   The third group of possible ways to name species is to give them a
unique number! How's this: atricapillus2346793? The best estimates today
of the number of species on Earth are in the range of 10 million. I
wonder who gets number 1....
   So what do you think? Is it better to carve names in stone, but lose
all the information inherent in them? Or do you think that the
hierarchical level should give you some idea about the relationships of
species in question? Personally, I find the prospect of somebody naming
a new butterfly species John.com (or more properly Johnus.comus, as
Cantino et al say names should be Latinized) nauseating.

Cheers,
Niklas

-- 
________________________________________________________________________

   Niklas Wahlberg                          
   Metapopulation Research Group
   Department of Ecology and Systematics    
   Division of Population Biology           
   PO Box 17 (Arkadiankatu 7)               
   00014 University of Helsinki
   Finland                                                         
   p. +358-9-191 28778, fax +358-9-191 28701

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