Re: Apomorphy-based definitions

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> > > And if a species can belong to two different clades across a clade
> > > boundary, naming clades is pointless.
> >
> >  Why?
>
> The long and short of it is that taxa are bins into which species are
> pigeonholed. If a species is pigeonholed into two distinct clades (such
> that neither clade includes the other), then we haven't classified the
species.

The long and the short of the PhyloCode is that clades are bins into which
_individuals_ are pigeonholed, and that species are _another independent_
set of bins into which the same individuals are pigeonholed. If the first
few individuals of 2 sister clades belong to the same (bio-, eco-, morpho-,
...)species, who cares?

See http://www.ohiou.edu/phylocode/preface.html, which doesn't get specific
but emphasizes the difference between clades and species and includes
several sentences like "In this respect, the PhyloCode reflects a
philosophical shift from naming and classifying species to naming both
species and clades."

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> Lots of times there are new characters but no splits. Most species arise
> anagenetically, as a character appears spontaneously and spreads through
> an entire population.

The question is whether such changes should be called speciation.