[seek-taxon] [Seek-taxon] FYI

[Robert K. Peet]

Hello,

Alan Weakley, who I have recently uninvited for our May meeting, just sent
me the following very nice example of changing concepts in the NC and SC
taxa of grasses traditionally known as Andropogon spp.  He tracks the
concepts of these over the 8 major taxonomic treatments from 1889 to 2005
with the number of taxa being around 22 and decreasing to 6 and going back
up to 22.  He suggests the following title for this example: " Andropogon
systematics, or There and Back Again, a trip from splitting to Radfordian
lumping and back again:  Is systematic science really a progression
towards the truth or a series of aimless wanderings in the wilderness?"
Note that the Andropogon virginicus complex (yellow shading) varies from
only 1 taxon (RAB 1968) to 8 taxa divided among 5 spp, and that no two
treatments handled it the same way.

Bob

 ======================================================================
     Robert K. Peet, Professor & Chair         Phone:  919-962-6942
     Curriculum in Ecology, CB#3275            Fax:    919-962-6930
     University of North Carolina              Cell:   919-368-4971
     Chapel Hill, NC  27599-3275  USA          Email:  peet at unc.edu

                   http://www.unc.edu/depts/ecology/
                 http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/peet/
 ======================================================================


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