Macroevolutionary Systematics of Streptotrichaceae of the Bryophyta and Application to Ecosystem Thermodynamic Stability
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Macroevolutionary Systematics of Streptotrichaceae of the Bryophyta and Application to Ecosystem Thermodynamic Stability — Richard H. Zander 2017 Zetetic Publications, St. Louis Richard H. Zander Missouri Botanical Garden P.O. Box 299 St. Louis, MO 63166 U.S.A. [email protected] Zetetic Publications in St. Louis produces but does not sell this book. Amazon.com is a ready source, and any book dealer can obtain a copy for you through the usual channels. Resellers please contact CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform of Amazon. ISBN-13: 978-1974188680 ISBN-10: 197418868X © Copyright 2017, all rights reserved. Portions of this book may be freely copied by other scientists and reused in publications without permission as long as proper attribution is made. The image on the cover of this book is of the “clocks” or seed heads of the common dandelion. These represent the radiation of descendant species in dissilient genera. As hubs of scale-free and small-world networks, dissilient genera help sustain survival, through evolutionary and ecologic redundancy, of both the family Streptotrichaceae and the ecosystems of which that family is a significant floristic element. The illustration on the title page shows the theoretical evolution of a dissilient genus through time, from a core progenitor on the left, through radiation of more specialized descendant species or lineages, to gradual extinction of most species, only leaving, in this case, a specialized descendant. TABLE OF CONTENTS PART 1: METHODS Chapter 1. Introduction ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Chapter 2. Simple Guide --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5 Chapter 3. Justification ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15 Chapter 4. Previous Study ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 25 Chapter 5. Methods ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------29 Chapter 6. Outgroup Analysis --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------49 Chapter 7. Data Set -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 55 Chapter 8. Cladistics --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------57 Chapter 9. Analytic Key ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------63 Chapter 10. Retrospective on Molecular Systematics --------------------------------------------------------------- 73 Chapter 11. Retrospective on the Cladogram --------------------------------------------------------------------------81 PART 2: TAXONOMY Chapter 12. Streptotrichaceae -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 87 Chapter 13. The Genera --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 91 Chapter 14. Miscellaneous and Excluded Species ----------------------------------------------------------------- 157 PART 3: SUMMARY Chapter 15. Conceptual Novelties ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 159 Chapter 16. Theory ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 161 Chapter 17. Discussion --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 179 Chapter 18. Adaptations of Species ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 198 Chapter 19. Adaptations of Ecosystems ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 205 Literature Cited ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 217 Glossary -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 225 Index ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 231 PREFACE The best new science is presented by someone who has worked on a tough problem for years, delving into inscrutable jargon-filled literature and wrestling with recondite technical methods, and has finally published a paper in which the hard-won solution is then suddenly “obvious” to readers upon publication. I have, in spite of much keyboard thumping over the past ten years, apparently not yet produced such an explanatory prodigy. I earnestly commend the present work, however, to the marketplace of ideas. It is not enough to point out other’s faults, but one must advance a method that overcomes them. A portion of the material in this book was originally submitted to a certain systematics journal. After some time I queried the editor, and he allowed as how six noted systematists had refused to review it and he was still trying to find someone to do so. Later I received a nice letter from him saying that the journal must decline the manuscript without review. The editor kindly quoted one potential reviewer as replying: “I seldom can even understand what Richard Zander does and so I would be a poor choice to review his work.” Another refusnik wrote: “I have tried to review Zander’s papers along these lines before and I have found them to be nearly unintelligible.” Well ... hmmm. Scientific stances can be somewhat akin to religious beliefs. Apparently direct descent of a species from another species is an “out-of-context” phenomenon for phylogeneticists who are totally focused on shared descent revealed by nodes that cluster taxa sharing advanced transformative traits. Psychologically, this mental vice is called “epistemic closure,” which differs from cognitive dissonance in that there is no sense of unease or moment of doubt. Some reviewers of my papers have carped that they (cladists) have considered and rejected my ideas back in the 1980’s, and I should go read the literature of that period for illumination of how I far have strayed. It is possible that the recent crop of budding systematists consider the long-running paraphyly controversy as simply an irredentist squabble between old men fighting old battles that are now irrelevant. This is hardly the case. I offer a way to do something new with powerful concepts involving process- based evolution. Why call it “macroevolutionary systematics”? That is, a name more up-to-date and attractive to millennial students? Like, say, “quantum systematics”? (Not to be confused with V. Grant’s 1963: 456, 1981: 155 quantum evolution.) How might that work? The quantum would then be the ultimate unit of systematics knowledge, i.e., the hint. I have in the past discussed this (Zander 1993: 85)—for instance: “A ‘hint’ of support is certainly not actionable alone, nor are even several hints impressive. Using 0.60 probability as representative of a hint, being just beyond totally equivocal, requires 0.60 to be used as a prior seven times in successive empirical analyses with Bayes’ Formula, with no contrary information, to reach 0.96. The credible interval for very minor support is 0.60.” There is a statistical equivalent to a hint, the deciban. If we use one deciban (Zander 2014a: 4) as the equivalent of a basic unit of detectable knowledge, which has a Bayesian posterior probability of 0.55, then we have a quantum in Bayesian statistics, and willy nilly in systematics. Technically, a deciban is the minimum clue that a hypothesis is true. It takes 13 decibans to reach 0.95 probability, which is the minimum probability recognized across scientific studies necessary to ensure actionable confidence in a simple hypothesis. But a hint is difficult to work with, as I found in my Bayesian study of Didymodon (Zander 2014a,b,c). The next highest level of information is the bit as used in information science, equivalent to 0.666 probability, or about 1 standard deviation. It is almost exactly equal to 3 decibans. One bit (3 dB) is the minimum information needed to make a decision between two alternatives, in this case whether the information is definitely good enough to work with, that is, something better than a hint. Using the bit as the next level of support above the deciban excludes about 1 standard deviation of variation or about 1/3 of potential hypotheses, while 4 bits is 0.94 probability, excluding nearly 2 standard deviations of variation. Thus, one bit is “working support.” In the present work we will use the bit as a kind of superquantum. I am, however, too respectful of past study to promote the present research as quantum or even superquantum systematics, no matter how snazzy the phrase may be. So, “macroevolutionary systematics” must suffice to distinguish this method by emphasizing taxon to taxon evolution even though informational bits are much used. Reviewers have occasionally complained that I use big words and unfamiliar concepts from other fields (e.g., Brower 2015; Schmidt-Lebuhn 2014; for reply see Zander 2014). Words conveying complex ideas and new concepts are necessary when introducing a new analytic method, and when criticizing older, cladistic methods. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book is dedicated to students of bryology worldwide who have been attracted to study of Pottiaceae, in part, by my 1993 Genera of the Pottiaceae. I particularly