I was a bit slow off the mark this morning, and Kristian put it
better than I could have any way! .....
.... I agree with all of the recent contributions to this thread, but there
appears to be a wider issue here that has been missed (except by
Kristian).
Robin Wilson says
> Similarities (character states) shared by these 3 taxa are also
> shared by several other nereidid genera, and it seems to me that
> these 3 are no more closely related than they are to several other
> valid genera.
OK so it looks as though Nereis s.s., Neanthes s.s. and Hediste may
not be each others closest relatives, and therefore that the placement of
all three as subgenera under Nereis may not reflect reality (to borrow
Kirk's term). Not to mention that Neanthes s.s. is probably not
monophyletic.
I suspect that this scenario may be true of many
polychaete subgenera and of relationships between subgenera
under their parent genus. So why do we continue to recognise (and use) the
subgeneric category if their monophyly and relationships to one another
have not been substantiated by a cladistic analysis?
Robin goes on to say...
> It is unimportant and arbitrary whether one refers to these
> combinations as genera or subgenera ....
and Geoff ...
> Biologists can use them [generic and subgeneric names] at the level
> they wish without fear of censure either way. It's not important.
But, as is evident in the early messages in this thread, the fact that
there is this choice appears to be causing confusion out there among
biologists, conservation managers etc. The differences between say, Nereis
diversicolor, Nereis (Hediste) diversicolor and the incorrectly formed,
Hediste (Nereis) diversicolor, appear to be too subtle for the
non-taxonomist, and causing problems.
So shouldn't we just dump the subgeneric rank altogether? The pink
book pretty much took this approach I believe, and hopefully the
revised version in the pipeline will too. One less Linnean category is not
going to make a big difference. Sure there will be some species-rich genera
as a result (eg. Nereis), but in these days of computers (and not having to
rely so much on memory), it makes little difference!
Chris
Dr Chris Glasby
National Institute for Water & Atmospheric Research
PO Box 14-901, Kilbirnie
Wellington, New Zealand
email: c.glasby at niwa.cri.nz
phone: 64-4-386 0352; fax: 64-4-386 2153
-- ANNELIDA LIST
Discuss = <annelida at net.bio.net> = talk to all members
Server = <biosci-server at net.bio.net> = un/subscribes
Archives = http://www.bio.net:80/hypermail/ANNELIDA/
Resources = http://biodiversity.uno.edu/~worms/annelid.html
--
