NewsletterThe of theSystematist Systematics Association Summer 2005 Number 25 www.systass.org ISSN 1744-5701 Spotlight on Meeting report DAISY and automated Palms: identification an International Symposium the Biology of the Palm Family Book reviews Milestones in Systematics. Organelles, BackPage Genomes and News and Eukaryote Phylogeny. forthcoming events of the Systematics Association Portrait of Dispersal Rafting Iguanas or Rifting Continents? Eukaryote Phylogeny: an Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Evolutionary Synthesis by Hirt and Paris. Please address all your corre- Editorial Horner. spondence to Malte Ebach (see address and email details on BackPage). th 25 Issue of The 5th Biennial in Cardiff Systematist August 22 - 26 Greetings and welcome to the The 5th Biennial Meeting of the th Summer and 25 issue of The Systematics Association held in Systematist: Newsletter of the association with the National Systematics Association. The lead Museum and Art Gallery of Wales article in the Summer issue explores and the University of Cardiff will be the revolutions in biogeography and held in Cardiff, Wales. The Meeting their shaky past in relation to geolo- will have three invited symposia gy in Biogeography and Scientific The New Taxonomy hosted by Revolutions by Dennis McCarthy. Quentin Wheeler, What is The book reviews start on Page 16 McCarthy's ‘thought provoking’ Biogeography? Hosted by Malte exposé of biogeographical thinking Last of all our BackPage lists all the Ebach and Ray Tangney and over the last 150 years will be fol- events and contact details of the Compatibility Methods in lowed up by with a presentation for Systematics Association. Systematics hosted by Mark the Biogeography Symposium at the We thank our contributing authors Wilkinson. Contributing speakers th 5 Biennial Meeting of the for their views, reviews and will be holding parallel sessions Systematics Association in Cardiff thoughts. The Systematist is looking during the duration of the confer- during August 22 - 26. Also in this forward to receiving any responses ence. Interested parties wanting to issue, we have a Systematics or counter-views expressed in any attend for a day or for the whole Association conference report of the recently published articles. symposium may pay their registra- International Symposium on the tion fees on the day. Please contact Biology of the Palm Family by Bill The editors look forward to your Ray Tangney (see www.systass.org) Baker as well as our Spotlight fea- contributions and suggestions. if you have any queries regarding ture article on Automated Object the meeting. Recognition in Systematics by Norm Change of Editorship MacLeod, Stig Walsh and Mark O'Neill introducing their revolution- On a sad note, Paul Wilkin will be ary new data recognition system retiring as co-editor of The called DAISY. MacLeod, Walsh and Systematist. Under Paul's editorship O'Neill will be hosting the the Newsletter has seen a dramatic Algorithmic Approaches to the transformation. Now with a new Identification Problem in title and an expansion to 24 glossy Systematics Symposium to be held at pages, The Systematist has already the Natural History Museum on been cited in the New York Times August 19. We look forward to (December 12, 2004) and reaches a meeting you there! wide audience of comparative biolo- Other articles in the Summer issue gists, journalists and geographers include a critique of systematics in worldwide via our website Quentin Wheeler's review of the lat- (www.systass.org). In the new year est Systematics Association publica- the Systematics Association will tion Milestones in Systematics edit- assign a new co-editor to work with ed by Williams and Forey followed Malte Ebach. The new co-editor Details of the 5th Biennial Meeting of by an in depth review of our other will be announced in the next issue the Systematics Association can be latest Systematics Association publi- of The Systematist. Malte will also found at the Systematics Association cation, Organelles, Genomes and be moving France, based at the website: www.systass.org Cover illustration : ‘Dispersing Iguana’ montage. Copyright 2005 Dennis McCarthy (published with permis- Malte C. Ebach and Paul Wilkin sion). See page 3 for the lead article. Co - editors The Systematist 2005 No. 25 2 Biogeography and Scientific Revolutions Dennis McCarthy Buffalo Museum of Science, Buffalo, USA As our past disputes over evolution and continental drift make clear: those who underestimate the probative value of distributional evidence are like- ly to end up on the wrong side of science history. It appears that biogeog- raphy, which has served as the focal point of two recent scientific revolutions, is about to usher in a third. urrently, a significant would be more likely, on average, to that time the longest crossing of an number of distributional favor certain outdoorsy activities ice cap. The ‘father of continental facts, particularly like rock climbing and kayaking. drift’ would ultimately die on an C involving oceanic dis- His implication, perhaps, was that a expedition in Greenland in 1930. junctions of poor-dispersing taxa, love of nature combined with a cer- Alfred Russel Wallace spent a num- are in direct conflict with conven- tain fearlessness or, at least, moxie ber of years along the Amazon and tional palaeomaps of the Mesozoic might be helpful in rejecting reli- was one of the first Europeans to Pacific and Tethys. Many gious and academic dogma for the explore Rio Negro. In 1852, on his researchers have dealt with these inconsistencies by ignoring basic biogeographical realities and posit- ing radical cross-ocean dispersal hypotheses to explain the problem- atic disjunctions. The Revolutionaries The five revolutionaries (see inset), a group which could also include T. H., Huxley (evolution), These five Alexander du Toit (continental revolutionaries have drift), and Leon Croizat (vicari- led revolutions in three ance), all helped raze conventional scientific fields ... assumptions in geology, biology and psychology -- yet, as noted, each of They have one thing them, like Huxley, du Toit, and in common... Croizat, also happened to be bio- they are all geographers. The question is, 'Why biogeographers would so many revolutionaries in so many disparate fields of thought all be specialists in the little known steelier, realistic views of life. trip back to England from South field of biogeography?' Adventurousness may also be a trait America, his ship caught fire and One possible reason is that bio- commonly shared by scientific revo- sank, stranding Wallace and his geography is the science of adven- lutionaries. Wegener, while studying shipmates in cramped and leaky turers. During an interview about meteorology, took up hot air bal- lifeboats until their rescue ten days his book, Consilience, E.O. Wilson looning and in 1906 broke the world later. Undaunted, Wallace would once told me he suspected that those record for most time aloft, more later travel to Indonesia and become who followed the consilient view of than 52 hours. In 1912, while on an one of the first Europeans to live in the sciences and the sociobiological expedition in Greenland, he and his New Guinea for an extended period view of human nature and culture team barely survived what was at of time. Darwin's five year jaunt The Systematist 2005 No. 25 3 around-the-world, with a stop in tions to explain distributions; they Verde Islands are related to those of Galapagos is well known and needs used distributions to test orthodox Africa, like those of the Galapagos little elaboration here. Du Toit, like assumptions. to America. I believe this grand fact Wallace and Darwin, studied exten- In a letter to J.D. Hooker in 1845, can receive no sort of explanation sively throughout South America. Darwin described biogeography as on the ordinary view of independent He also helped map the Cape of the key to unlocking the mystery of creation; whereas on the view here Good Hope and spent time in the speciation, referring to ‘geographi- maintained, it is obvious that the other Gondwanan continents, India cal distribution’ as ‘that grand sub- Galapagos Islands would be likely and Australia. ject, that almost keystone of the to receive colonists, whether by The writings of these revolution- laws of creation.’ Fourteen years occasional means of transport or by aries, like their life histories, adver- later, he would publish The Origin formerly continuous land, from tise their Magellanic nature. of Species with two chapters devot- America; and the Cape de Verde Wallace's On the Law Which Has ed to ‘Geographical Distribution.’ In Islands from Africa; and that such Regulated the Introduction of New them, Darwin notes that frogs, colonists would be liable to modifi- Species, Darwin's The Origin of toads, and newts are almost com- cations; the principle of inheritance Species, Wegener's The Origin of pletely absent from oceanic islands - still betraying their original birth- Continents and Oceans, du Toit's places where they would be expect- place.’ Our Wandering Continents, do not ed to thrive. These distributions, as Like Darwin, Wallace (1855) also smell of the class room; they smell Darwin pointed out, are inconsistent used distributional patterns to help of swamps, jungles, rivers, and with the ‘theory of independent cre- mould the theory of evolution and beaches. Such risk-takers are not ation’, that is, the idea that species challenge conventional assumptions in biology. On the Law Which Has Regulated the Introduction of New The writings of these revolutionaries ... do not Species, Wallace's rudimentary pro- smell of the class room; they smell of swamps, logue to his evolutionary view, is first and foremost a biogeographical jungles, rivers, and beaches. paper. In it, Wallace puts forth argu- ments that read much like the work likely to be awed by professors or could be independently created in of Croizat, anticipating Croizat's cowed by textbooks.