tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post3650229581728602173..comments2023-12-24T07:02:43.274+08:00Comments on Catalogue of Organisms: Keeping an Eye on InflationChristopher Taylorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11075565866351612441noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-16904050997215528172009-06-25T11:33:37.528+08:002009-06-25T11:33:37.528+08:00The 'charisma' survey was by far the weake...The 'charisma' survey was by far the weakest part of Sangster's paper, I have to admit. I suspect that the scores for 'familiarity', etc. were probably Sangster's own estimates rather than being based on any actual survey. I would have also liked to see a list of the actual families scored for charisma - for practical reasons, Sangster limited the comparison to speciose families, but more speciose families, of course, also tend to be less charismatic in general.<br /><br />In response to Allen's comment as well, I'd be very interested to know if Sangster's results hold for mammals as well as birds, or whether mammalogists have different biases (or lacks thereof) from ornithologists.Christopher Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11075565866351612441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-85391104698829309542009-06-24T19:08:26.613+08:002009-06-24T19:08:26.613+08:00Interestingly, Sangster actually attempts to defin...Interestingly, Sangster actually attempts to define 'charisma'. From the paper:<br /><br /><i>To determine whether the increase in species is biased towards 'charismatic' groups […] avian family taxa were scored for three characteristics: (i) body size, (ii) morphological distinctiveness and (iii) familiarity among non-biologists</i><br /><br />I wish he'd explained his methodology in a bit more detail, though, particularly regarding the scoring of characteristic (iii). E.g., how many non-biologists did he survey and where? (I suppose that 'a familiar bird' means something rather different to a non-biologist in Australia than it does to a non-biologist in the UK, for example.)Dartiannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-80932526356711603942009-06-24T12:21:42.763+08:002009-06-24T12:21:42.763+08:00I think the period of "lumping," at leas...I think the period of "lumping," at least with large mammals, lasted a bit beyond the 1950s. The nature guides of my childhood (1950s) had the American red fox and wapiti as different species (Vulpes fulva and Cervus canadensis) from their Palearctic cousins, but I have noticed that more recent sources lump them with Vulpes vulpes and ... is it C. elaphus?<br />---<br />On species concepts and Homo sap: I have seen at least one paper (on some bunch of South-East Asian mammals, I forget which) which explicitly adopted a numerical measure of specieshood: above a certain percentage of nucleotide differences and two populations count as separate species. (Bizarre, it seems to me, if you like either the "biological" or the "phylogenetic" species concept: it seemed to me to be numerical pheneticism run wild, but it has obvious practical attractions....) And my understanding is that the various human "races" are actually LESS different from each other, on this sort of measure, than typically recognized SUBspecies of other mammalian species.Allen Hazenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05098575774774203097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-18364405755147994822009-06-23T07:18:25.210+08:002009-06-23T07:18:25.210+08:00Kai, this sort of argument is actually more of a p...Kai, this sort of argument is actually <i>more</i> of a problem with vertebrate taxonomy, because (a) charismatic vertebrates have been revised to death more than inverts, and (b) as I mentioned in the post, most invert taxonomists haven't bothered with recognising "subspecies" in the first place - if it's distinct, it's a species.<br /><br />Larry, the last researcher I'm aware of who divided living humans into separate species was Louis Agassiz. The level of gene flow between human populations is probably much greater than between isolated vertebrate populations (at least these days). That said, the major issue at play here is probably a matter of politics as much as science. I think it would be unwise to divide humans into separate "species" because people would insist on reading more into that statement than is really there. This is an underlying handicap in any study of human variation, whatever the terminology you might choose to use.<br /><br />Steve: certainly as the number of recognised species increases, it becomes increasingly difficult (if not impossible) to conserve them all. There is a great need for a method to prioritise conservation targets (such as the EDGE system).Christopher Taylorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11075565866351612441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-12890296748830804602009-06-23T04:40:57.259+08:002009-06-23T04:40:57.259+08:00I've always wondered why conservation wasn'...I've always wondered why conservation wasn't at the Genus level. Speciation is so chaotic and mobile that it seems like a futile target.Steve Dhttp://www.zoxesyrbautie.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-36451301464457204302009-06-22T21:59:55.779+08:002009-06-22T21:59:55.779+08:00Is anyone proposing to split Homo sapiens? Why not...Is anyone proposing to split <i>Homo sapiens</i>? Why not?Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5460788270738656369.post-18629311044894269982009-06-22T19:42:11.492+08:002009-06-22T19:42:11.492+08:00Ah, lumpers and splitters, species concepts, the ...Ah, lumpers and splitters, species concepts, the failure of the Linnaean hierarchy, and taxonomic inflation. All some of my favorite topics. I only really know these in the context of entomology, so I wasn't really aware there was such a problem in vertebrate taxa as well. I figured the smaller overall number of species would make it that much easier.<br /><br />~KaiAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com