Re: BRYONET: local endemics [SEC=Unclassified]

BRYONET
Hi Rod,
You definitely have me wrong -- I wouldn't call anything a "species."
I view the rank "species" as term outmoded since Darwin's writings.
As you say, we need classification to order diversity. Many approaches
are possible. Grouping like organisms via similarity into
phenetic boxes is one way, but as an evolutionary biologist I prefer
grouping them by evidence of monophyly into named clades. Individuals
are usually not clades (except in strictly clonal groups). In
practice, evidence for monophyly (independent, congruent apomorphies)
appears at fairly inclusive levels, so the entities named are at a
level that would not make you unhappy, I would guess. For a worked
example of this approach in mosses see the nice paper by K. Fisher in
Systematic Botany (2006), 31(1): pp. 13-30.
Best,
Brent
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Brent D. Mishler
Professor, Department of Integrative Biology
Director, University and Jepson Herbaria
Mailing address:
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
UNIVERSITY AND JEPSON HERBARIA
1001 VALLEY LIFE SCIENCES BLDG # 2465
BERKELEY, CA 94720-2465 USA
Phone: (510) 642-6810
FAX: (510) 643-5390
WWW: http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/people/mishler.html
**********************************************************
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