2008/04/29 by Mats Envall · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies #Plant and animal studies #Plant Taxonomy and Phylogenetics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2008.00984.x
openalex publication_date 2008/04/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
About 50 years ago, the German entomologist Willi Hennig presented a new approach in biological systematics that he called a phylogenetic systematics. The main difference between his approach and traditional Linnean systematics was that he distinguished two new kinds of groups that he called mono- and paraphyletic groups, and whereof he considered only monophyletic groups to be natural groups. However, almost immediately after publication of his approach in English, some biological systematists commented that his monophyletic groups rather ought to be called holophyletic groups. The comment sparked a heated debate about the definition of the concept ‘monophyletic groups’, but the debate never reached consensus. In this paper, I claim that the controversy does not concern the definition of the concept monophyletic groups per se, but instead conceptualization of phylogenies (i.e. dichotomously branching processes) in a general sense. I discuss the relation between mono-, holo- and paraphyletic groups, and conclude that Hennig's conceptualization of phylogenies is both inconsistent and empirically wrong, whereas Linné's instead is consistent and correct.