Tale of Two Continents --

[Michael Gochfeld]

I agree that the cultural differences (disproporationate lumper/splitter ratio)
may be as important as how much critical
systematics is being done.  I sense, for example, a certain reluctance to accept
the elegant studies by Dave Wright and Harry Pavulaan showing that an azure
isn't just an azure any more.   Knowing my own distaste for the generic
tampering going on with American birds, it is easy to imagine that there is a
reluctance to accept new evidence about species diversity that rocks our
"understanding" (or worse, requires that we re-label things).

Mike Gochfeld

"Grkovich, Alex" wrote:

> I would agree with Chris' comments about the paucity of critical study in
> North America. Europe does, howeeer, have a surprising development of
> species among certain groups of Butterflies, notably Satyrids, Lycaenids,
> etc. Also, the continent is divided and isolated east/west by the high
> mountain ranges which no doubt has caused much diversity, and a number of
> species wander or range into Europe from Asia, and also North Africa.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Chris J. Durden [SMTP:drdn at mail.utexas.edu]
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 10:23 PM
> > To:   leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> > Subject:      Fwd: Re: Tale of Two Continents --
> >
> >
> > >Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2001 21:13:55 -0600
> > >To: Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
> > >From: "Chris J. Durden" <drdn at mail.utexas.edu>
> > >Subject: Re: Tale of Two Continents --
> > >
> > >Norbert,
> > >    I think you hit the nail on the head. The apparent paucity of North
> > > American butterfly diversity does seem to be due to lack of critical
> > > study. The number of butterfly taxonomists (indeed any taxonomists) per
> > > square mile is well below that of the European countries. Serious
> > > taxonomists in North America all know about difficult genera,
> > intractable
> > > problems, cryptic species  and problems they would look into if only
> > they
> > > had the time. Unfortunately these taxonomists are expiring before they
> > > find the time to solve these problems. Are they being replaced? I think
> > > not. Old-style (or even new-style) Museum Taxonomy has been a pariah of
> > a
> > > specialty for at least the last half century. Look at the dissertations
> > > over this time span. Although there is systematics squirreled away in
> > > some of the papers it is usually overshadowed by some genetic,
> > > chromatographic, electrophoretic, or now molecular topic. It has not
> > been
> > > possible for some time to get a PhD in unadulterated general
> > systematics.
> > > We should not be surprised that there are very few PhDs now available to
> >
> > > solve our problems in systematics. A lot of the systematics of the last
> > > half century has been done by amateurs, opportunists and junior level
> > > academics. Although a lot of it has been fine work, it has not been
> > > considered to belong in the leading edge of current research. At the low
> >
> > > point of this trend, back in the sixties and seventies I remember "great
> >
> > > scientists" proclaiming that there was no way we could hope to know all
> > > the species in the world, and that just a sampling from selected groups
> > > was enough. Personal computers changed all that, but we never picked up
> > > the educational thread. We never reinstated the study of descriptive
> > > systematics in our field.
> > >    How can we persuade our colleagues in the universities that taxonomy
> > > and descriptive systematics is really important. How can we persuade
> > them
> > > to stimulate and educate our future researchers?
> > >.............Chris Durden
> > >
> > >At 12:19 PM 11/6/2001 -0800, you wrote:
> > >>Well, parts of two continents anyway. For whatever, reason my mind
> > recently
> > >>turned to a quick and crude comparison of Europe as defined in Higgins
> > and
> > >>Riley's field guide to butterflies and then the North American countries
> > of
> > >>Canada and USA. This said crude comparison reveals that Can and USA is
> > >>roughly at least 3 times the size of europe, has a greater latitudinal
> > and
> > >>longitudinal spread and seemingly more environmental diversity as a
> > place
> > >>for butterflies to evolve. Yet, for some reason we only seem to
> > recognize
> > >>about 1.5 times as many butterfly species as in europe. Geographers and
> > >>mathematicians are welcome to fiddle with the crude numbers above but I
> > am
> > >>wondering if the species per area difference is real or if it is a
> > >>reflection of our relatively more primitive knowledge of the taxonomy of
> > NA
> > >>butterflies and history of lumping different looking butterflies into
> > the
> > >>same species. Thoughts are welcomed, and so too would be any literature
> > >>references in the biogeography realm or from other taxonomic groups of
> > >>organisms in case other people have wondered about this.
> > >>
> > >>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >>Norbert Kondla  P.Biol., RPBio.
> > >>Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management
> > >>845 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 1H3
> > >>Phone 250-365-8610
> > >>Mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
> > >>http://www.env.gov.bc.ca
> >
> >
> >
> >
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