Taxonomy and fossils: a critical appraisal

Many compendia at the species, genus and family levels document the fossil record, but these are not standardized, nor usually critical in content, and few are available on the World Wide Web. The sampling of the available record is good for organisms with fossilizable parts, but preservational cons...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological sciences 2004-04, Vol.359 (1444), p.639-653
Main Authors: Forey, Peter L., Fortey, Richard A., Kenrick, Paul, Smith, Andrew B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anatomy, Comparative
Biodiversity
Biological taxonomies
Classification
Classification - methods
Completeness Of The Fossil Record
Computational Biology - methods
Diversity
Extinct species
Fossils
Genera
Geology
Internet
Paleontology
Parataxa
Phylogeny
Plants
Species
Species diversity
Species extinction
Species Specificity
Taxa
Terminology as Topic
Time Factors
World Wide Web
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Summary:Many compendia at the species, genus and family levels document the fossil record, but these are not standardized, nor usually critical in content, and few are available on the World Wide Web. The sampling of the available record is good for organisms with fossilizable parts, but preservational constraints on the entire morphology, life history and geographical distribution lead to difficulties in recognizing and naming species. We recommend abandoning some of the palaeontological species concepts such as chronospecies and stratospecies, and we advocate species recognition based on unique combinations of characters. The compilation of species lists is extremely time consuming, and given the inherent problems we suggest that compilation of generic lists is a more achievable goal because genera are recognized by definitive morphological characters. In calculating taxon duration, care must be taken to distinguish between mono-, para- and polyphyletic groups, the first being the only reliable unit for use in calculating diversity curves. We support the inclusion of fossils into classifications based on Recent organisms, but we recognize some of the problems this may pose for standard Linnaean classifications. Web-based taxonomy is the way forward, having the advantages of speed and currency of information dissemination, universal access with links to primary literature and increasingly sophisticated imagery. These advantages over conventional outlets will only be realized with careful Web design and a commitment to maintenance.
ISSN:0962-8436
1471-2970
DOI:10.1098/rstb.2003.1453