The Evolution of Phylogenetic Systematics

Species and Systematics

by Andrew Hamilton (Editor)

The Evolution of Phylogenetic Systematics aims to make sense of the rise of phylogenetic systematics—its methods, its objects of study, and its theoretical foundations—with contributions from historians, philosophers, and biologists. This volume articulates an intellectual agenda for the study of systematics and taxonomy in a way that connects classification with larger historical themes in the biological sciences, including morphology, experimental and observational approaches, evolution, biogeography, debates over form and function, character transformation, development, and biodiversity. It aims to provide frameworks for answering the question: how did systematics become phylogenetic?

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Wendelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing if you are interested in the history of the construction of phylogenetic schemes in classifying species. The first chapter concerns mainly with the 3rd wave of expeditionary collecting and discovery of species (after the Linnaean and Humboldtian waves) during the 18th-to-mid-19th century primarily among British explorers, and how this wave died down due to the confluence of several factors: the urbanization of the inner frontier due to the rise of interconnecting highways and automobiles and the urban sprawl, the replacement of rural/outdoor perambulations with mass (but low-grade) tourism, and the near-complete discovery and classification of most large vertebrates. The second chapter is about the life and works of Willi Hennig, father of phylogenetic systematics. The third chapter is a rather difficult read on the history of the concept of homology and the effects on this concept by the rise of developmental biology. The 4th chapter is about the back-and-forth tension of grouping vs. ranking in phylogenetic systematics. The 5th chapter is about the viability of pattern cladism or transformative cladism. The 6th chapter is a brief nostalgic account by a vertebrate paleontologist on the straightforward nature of cladistics during 'an earlier time', that is, the 1960s. The 7th chapter is concerned with a principal talk given by Colin Patterson, a paleoichthyologist with the London Museum of Natural History, regarding the impact of molecular evidence in building phylogenies. This molecular record could be used along with the '3 Great records' proposed by Ernst Haeckel in building phylogenies-- morphology, ontogeny, and paleontological evidence. The 8th chapter is about the historical development of phylogenetic relationships in botany.... This is a jewel, a rather obscure find, an interesting gallop through the adventure and mystery of scientific efforts, plausible only through the printing of academic presses.