Biological Systematics
The state of the art
Published on 6. December 2012
406 pages
978-94-011-9643-7 (ISBN)
Description
To some potential readers of this book the description of Biological System atics as an art may seem outdated and frankly wrong. For most people art is subjective and unconstrained by universal laws. While one picture, play or poem may be internally consistent comparison between different art products is meaningless except by way of the individual artists. On the other hand modern Biological Systematics - particularly phenetics and cladistics - is offered as objective and ultimately governed by universal laws. This implies that classifications of different groups of organisms, being the products of systematics, should be comparable irrespective of authorship. Throughout this book Minelli justifies his title by developing the theme that biological classifications are, in fact, very unequal in their expressions of the pattern and processes of the natural world. Specialists are imbibed with their own groups and tend to establish a consensus of what constitutes a species or a genus, or whether it should be desirable to recognize sub species, cultivars etc. Ornithologists freely recognize subspecies and rarely do bird genera contain more than 10 species. On the other hand some coleopterists and botanists work with genera with over 1500 species. This asymmetry may reflect a biological reality; it may express a working practicality, or simply an historical artefact (older erected genera often contain more species). Rarely are these phenomena questioned.
Reviews / Votes
Is a refreshingly no-dogmatic smorgasbord of many of the major aspects of systematics - Trends in Ecology and Evolution; ...performs a welcome service by organizing and integrating a large body of recent behavioural and physiolgical data within a coherent framework and by providing a critical guide to unresolved issues. Behavioural psychologists and neuroscientists working on learning and memory will find this book well worth the investment for orientation and reference - Bioscience; The style is quite readable, and I expecially appreciated the author's comparison of various sytematic codes and his editorial comments on how the process of systematics might be improved and streamlined ... a handy reference - American Zoologist; A valuable reference for more advanced students - Science and Technology; This book provides the broadest and most balanced review of systematics that I have seen. - Biological SystematicsMore details
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Book
09/1994
Chapman and Hall
€106.99
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Content
One: Problems and Methods.- 1 Systems and classifications.- 2 Some steps in comparative biology.- 3 Biochemical and molecular systematics.- 4 The species.- 5 Resources and media.- Two: The State of the Art.- 6 The inventory of natural diversity.- 7 Towards the system.- 8 Interviews on the daily work of systematists: problems and trends.- 9 The unequal distribution of taxonomic diversity.- 10 Domesticated animals and cultivated plants.- Three: Epilogue.- 11 Some dangerous trends, and a hope for the future.- Appendices.- 1 Zoological checklists and catalogues.- 2 Möhn's (1984) general classification of living organisms.- 3 'Provisional classification' of the Protista, according to Corliss.- 4 Phyla and classes of the Protoctista (Corliss' Protista) according to Margulis et al (1990).- 5 Möhn's (1984) classification of animals.- 6 Nielsen's (1985) classification of the Animalia.- 7 Ehlers's (1985) system of Plathelminthes.- 8 Jamieson's (1988) system of the Oligochaeta.- 9 Salvini-Plawen's (1980) classification of the Phylum Mollusca.- 10 Haszprunar's (1986) classification of gastropods.- 11 Weygoldt and Paulus's (1979) system of the Chelicerata.- 12 Shultz's (1990) system of the Chelicerata.- 13 Schram's (1986) classification of the Crustacea.- 14 Starobogatov's (1988) classification of the Crustacea.- 15 Hennig's (1969) system of the Insecta.- 16 Hennig's (1985) system of the Chordata.- 17 The major groups of Chordata according to Nelson (1969).- 18 Rosen et al.'s (1981) classification of gnathostome vertebrates.- 19 Carroll's (1987) classification of vertebrates, including both.- extinct and living forms.- 20 Lauder and Liem's (1983) classification of living bony fishes.- 21 Sibley and Ahlquist's (1990) classification of birds.-22 Bremer's (1985) cladistic classification of green plants.- 23 Dahlgren's (1989a,b) classification of the flowering plants.- References.- Author index.- Taxonomic index.
