Phylogenetics: Heed the father of cladistics

• Quentin Wheeler,
• Leandro Assis
• & Olivier Rieppel

FROM: Nature 496, 295–296 (18 April 2013)
doi:10.1038/496295a
Published online 17 April 2013
 

IN On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin proclaimed that “our classifications will come to be, as far as they can be so made, genealogies”. That turned out to be easier said than done. Even as late as the 1970s, biologists were still grouping animals and plants largely on the basis of overall physical similarity and whether they possessed or lacked certain traits, such as a backbone or the ability to produce flowers.
The German entomologist and palaeontologist Willi Hennig transformed the classification of organisms into the rigorous science of cladistics^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}. His book Phylogenetic Systematics⁶, published in 1966, laid out how to construct phylogenetic trees and how to use their branching patterns as the basis for classifications.
Paired with DNA sequencing, Hennig's theories revolutionized our understanding of the relationships among the nearly two million species known today. In the history of biological classification, the little-known Hennig arguably deserves a place alongside Aristotle, Carl Linnaeus and Darwin.

GERD HENNIG

Willi Hennig in 1960.

But two key messages from his book have been lost in the nearly half-century since it was published: the importance of detailed studies of the development and evolution of complex characters, such as the horn of a rhinoceros or the pincer of a fiddler crab; and the use of all relevant evidence — molecular, anatomical, fossil and developmental — in mapping evolutionary relationships. Too often these days, DNA information is favoured over everything else, and when conflicts arise between DNA-based analyses and those reliant on morphology, the former is frequently assumed to be correct, even though many uncertainties surround the molecular basis of evolution.
Hennig was born 100 years ago this week, on 20 April 1913. In celebration of his impact on phylogenetics and classification, we urge biologists to heed his call to embrace all the relevant data.

LEER MAS >

Próxima reunión de Biología Filogenética en México?

El 14 sería un buen año para celebrar la segunda reunión! Bueno ... cualquier año seria bueno, con tal de volver a reunirnos.
La 1ª. Reunión Mexicana de Biología Filogenética se celebró en Xalapa, Ver. durante Junio19-24, 2004.  La reunión fue financiada por el Instituto de Ecología AC, el Instituto de Biología, el Instituto de Ecología, el Instituto de Geología y la Fac de Ciencias de la UNAM, la UAM-Iztapalapa, la Universidad Veracruzana, Society of Systematic Biologists. Fue una reunión muy exitosa en la cual participaron al menos 150 asistentes provenientes de 17 instituciones y 39 dependencias nacionales y 25 instituciones de 10 países. La información, el programa, los conferencistas y una galería todavia podemos verla en unas páginas web guardadas en: http://www.filogenetica.org/reunion1.htm
Incluso todavia esta activo un blog exprofeso para la primera reunión en:
http://biologiafilogenetica.blogspot.com

La comunidad de investigadores y estudiantes aplicando métodos filogenéticos sin duda ha crecido. Ya es tiempo que despertemos y nos organicemos nuevamente para una segunda reunión. Ojala este llamado genere la iniciativa necesaria para poner en movimiento la organización de la siguiente reunión.
Agradeceré sus comentarios y sus propuestas aquí.
Saludos,
Efrain

Taxonomy: no decline, but inertia

1. Elise Tancoigne^*,
2. Alain Dubois

Article first published online: 8 FEB 2013

DOI: 10.1111/cla.12019

CLADISTICS

Abstract

The recent literature is rich in papers sounding the alarm about taxonomy. We analyzed data from the Zoological Record (1864–2010 and 1978–2010) to show that we cannot speak of a decline. The number of authors describing new species is growing, along with the number of articles describing new species and the number of new species. We also observed a growing interdisciplinarity and a change in the number of species described per author, suggesting that taxonomy is experiencing new ways of doing research. The modalities of these changes remain to be explored. It is therefore more pertinent to speak not of a decline, i.e. of a degradation relative to a previous situation, but of inadequacy relative to its objective, namely the scientific inventory and classification of the planet's living taxa.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cla.12019/abstract