Is Diagnosability an Indicator of Speciation? Response to “Why One Century of Phenetics Is Enough”

Recently (Heller et al. 2013; H&A), we commented on a revision of the bovid taxonomy, which proposes a doubling in the number of recognized species (Groves and Grubb 2011; G&G). The subsequent response by Cotterill et al. (2014; C&A) contains a number of misunderstandings and leaves much of the critique voiced in our paper unanswered, focusing instead on species ontologies and taxonomic history. C&A argue strongly against phenetics, morphospecies, and taxonomic conservatism, ascribing us views that we do not hold and hence confusing the substance of our disagreement. These misconceptions oblige us to clarify our views on certain key issues to avoid being misrepresented. More seriously, however, the authors fail to respond to, or acknowledge, some of our crucial practical concerns, notably the risk of taxonomic inflation (Isaac et al. 2004) posed by their diagnostic phylogenetic species concept (dPSC). Here, we restate a number of our concerns regarding the proposed bovid taxonomy of G&G and discuss their treatment in C&A.Danish Council for Independent Research, Natural Sciences, Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship, 7th European Community Framework Programme