Is Integration of Allelochemics, Morphology, and Ecogeography Systematically Relevant?

Abstract

The general validity of the conclusions of this book cannot be tested with ease by the usual analytical techniques. Isolation and structural elucidation of compounds, on which such work is exclusively based, is not fast enough considering the number of species and the rate of their extinction. Chemosystematics will never become as popular as morphological systematics, unless applicable procedures with equivalent speeds become available. Here I venture the opinion that the two major unifying principles of micromolecular evolution, structural diversification and changes in oxidation level, should be susceptible to direct measurement by simple methods and thus allow a rapid estimate of the relative phylogenetic position of a species.