Characters, Taxa and Species

Abstract

This chapter covers some of the many considerations that have to be taken into account when assembling data for taxonomic usage. Considerations of what characters are and how they should be encoded for analysis, and what taxa are and how to distinguish between natural and artificial groupings are vital aspects of any phylogenetic analysis as well as having major implications for phenetics, classification, nomenclature and many other areas of biology and taxonomy.

ArticleNote

Biology has long endured arguments over species concepts. The reasons for this contentiousness are not simple, but the willingness of biologists to engage in continued intellectual debate underscores the critical importance placed on species and the fact that no solution to the `species problem’ has been generally accepted. Cracraft (1989)