I do not favor Mike's proposed revision (of the definition of "taxon") for the following reason: some people view clades/higher taxa not as monophyletic groups of organisms but as monophyletic groups of species. Thus, saying that a taxon is a group of organisms is like saying that a family is a group of cells, which is true in a sense but emphasizes the wrong level of organization. The proposed wording "a group of organisms or species" is designed to be neutral with respect to the question of whether a taxon is a monophyletic group or organisms or a monophyletic group of species, which is the reason that it has to mention both. Kevin ________________________________________ From: Cantino, Philip [ cantino at ohio.edu ] Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2012 11:57 AM To: de Queiroz, Kevin Cc: Committee on Phylogenetic Nomenclature Subject: Re: [CPN] next set of CBM-related proposals Kevin, What do you think of Mike Keesey's suggestion? It looks fine to me. Phil On Oct 28, 2012, at 11:47 AM, Mike Keesey wrote: > On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Cantino, Philip < cantino at ohio.edu > wrote: >> Dear CPN members, >> >> It has taken a couple of weeks, but Kevin and I have finally worked through >> David's suggestions, some of which we have led to changes in the attached >> revision of the proposals I initially sent you on Sept. 24. I have inserted >> our responses below after each of David's comments. >> >> I would like to take a vote on this set of changes soon (i.e., the set of >> proposals I sent you on Sept. 24 plus the modifications contained here). If >> David or anyone else has further comments, please send them to the listserv >> by the end of the end of the day on Sunday (Oct. 28). If there is no >> further discussion calling for more changes, I think we could go ahead and >> vote on these starting on Monday. If anyone feels this is not sufficient >> time to review the changes, please let me know and we can delay the vote by >> a few days. > > Thanks for putting this together, Kevin and Phil. > > The changes look good to me. There is one minor tweak I would suggest > in the Glossary: > > CURRENT: > taxon (taxa). A taxonomic group of organisms. In this code, taxa may > be clades or species, but only clade names are governed by this code. > > PROPOSED REVISION: > taxon (taxa). A group of organisms or species considered a potential > recipient of a scientific name. Taxa may be clades or species, but > only clade names are governed by this code. > > Definitely an improvement, but I don't think it's necessary to > explicitly mention species here. I suggest this wording: > > taxon (taxa). A group of organisms considered a potential recipient of > a scientific name. This code only governs the names of monophyletic > taxa (clades). > > > T. Michael Keesey > http://tmkeesey.net/ >
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