Open AccessLinnean ranks, temporal banding, and time‐clipping: why not slaughter the sacred cow?
Author(s) -
ZACHOS FRANK E.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
biological journal of the linnean society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.906
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1095-8312
pISSN - 0024-4066
DOI - 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2011.01711.x
Subject(s) - clipping (morphology) , biology , taxon , argument (complex analysis) , rank (graph theory) , comparability , zoology , ecology , genealogy , mathematics , history , linguistics , combinatorics , philosophy , biochemistry
In a recent study, Avise & Liu (2011) ( Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 102: 707–714) presented evidence indicating that Linnean ranks are not temporally standardized (i.e. taxa of the same rank differ greatly in age). This is one more argument that ranks veil rather than convey biological comparability. The authors also discuss recent suggestions as to how these shortcomings should be overcome, in particular temporal banding (by which the same rank is assigned to taxa of the same geological age) and time‐clipping (adding a code to each taxon denoting the geological episode when it originated). In this short comment, it is argued that both temporal banding and time‐clipping may be deleterious in taxonomic practice and that the abandonment of the Linnean ranks is long overdue. © 2011 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2011, 103 , 732–734.