# The Advent of the PhyloCode: The Logical Consequence of Millennia of Developments in Biological Nomenclature?

Michel Laurin

► To cite this version:

Michel Laurin. The Advent of the PhyloCode: The Logical Consequence of Millennia of Developments in Biological Nomenclature?. The Ecphora - The Newsletter of the Calvert Marine Museum Fossil Club, 2023, 38 (4), pp.3-5. hal-04363859

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Submitted on 26 Dec 2023

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## Bronze Scapula

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### Features

* Bronze Deer Scapula

* The PhyloCode

* Chesapeake Bay-Ohio Prehistoric Trade

### Inside

* President's Column

* Archival Shart-Mounts

* Tully Monster

* Aquia Fm Pinecone

* Yellowstone Park

* Thermophilic Bacteria

* Columnar Basalt

* Mammoth Exhibit at NHSM

* Foothill Pine

* Columbian Mammoth

* Museum of Idaho

* Metal Meg Teeth

* Hagerman Fossil Beds, ID

* Vestigial Cusplets

* Carbonized Tree Trunk

* Meg-Bitten Whale Bone

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* AI Paleo-Art by MS Bing

* Club Events and More...

**John Nance** acquired this beautifully evocative bronze sculpture recently. Its core consists of a deer scapula from which this figure stands firm against the assaults of the Universe. By **Lamson**, 1971.

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# The Advent of PhyloCode
The Continuing Evolution of Biological Nomenclature

Michel Laurin

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CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group

# The Advent of the *PhyloCode*: The Logical Consequence of Millennia of Developments in Biological Nomenclature?

By Michel Laurin

All systematists use biological nomenclature, either to determine the correct name of the taxon to which a specimen belongs, or to name a new taxon. However, did you know that our nomenclatural system has deep historical roots? All indigenous peoples still living at least partly by hunting, fishing and gathering in reasonably pristine environments have highly elaborate biological nomenclatures and taxonomies (Berlin, 2014), which are far more complex than those of the average city dweller. The similarities between these nomenclatures and

taxonomies, which can be considered “cultural synapomorphies”, suggest an early origin, before these peoples dispersed to every continent on the planet (except Antarctica), and recent glottochronological analyses support this suggestion (Brown, 2010; Laurin, 2023a).

According to some pioneers of ethnobiology such as **Brent Berlin** and **Peter Raven** (among others), these nomenclatures include cryptic “ethnotaxonomic ranks”, which are never mentioned by the natives using these ethnotaxonomies (Berlin, 2014; Laurin, 2023b). But strangely, the many philosophers and zoologists who have studied Aristotle’s animal classification never mention such ranks, whereas they apparently occur in the ethnotaxonomies of the ancient Romans, who were strongly influenced by Greek culture and therefore, on zoological topics, by **Aristotle**. Does the lack of discussion of ethnotaxonomic ranks in Aristotle’s animal classification simply reflect a difference in academic community? Do “ethnotaxonomic ranks” really exist, or are they the figment of the imagination of ethnobiologists too inclined to draw inspiration from rank-based nomenclature, which until very recently was the sole embodiment of scientific biological nomenclature, for want of alternatives (Laurin, 2023b)?

More recently, “barely” two and a half centuries ago, **Linnaeus** introduced binominal nomenclature and reinforced the use of the famous “Linnaean categories”, a somewhat ill-chosen expression since some of these categories, such as the family, existed long before Linnaeus’ work (Magnol, 1689), while others, such as the phylum, were introduced long afterwards (Haeckel, 1866). For this reason, many systematists call this system “rank-based nomenclature”, rather than “Linnaean nomenclature”. This nomenclatural system now creates problems, because binominal names include taxonomic information and may therefore change with the phylogeny. Because of this, the large anuran originally named *Rana marina* by Linnaeus, long known as *Bufo marinus*, is now known mainly as *Rhinella marina*, although some authors call this taxon *Chaunus marinus* (Frost et al., 2006: 364). To find all the relevant articles on this taxon, you therefore have to search under these four names; not very handy for bibliographic searches!
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Linnaean categories are also problematic because they are purely artificial, something that even enthusiastic supporters of this type of nomenclature readily admit (Dubois et al., 2021: 5). Because of this, rank-based nomenclature does not really delimit taxa. Strangely enough, the *Zoological Nomenclature Commission* does not see this as a problem, as stated in Principle 2 of the Introduction to the *Zoological Code*:

> "Nomenclature does not determine the inclusiveness or exclusiveness of any taxon, nor the rank to be accorded to any assemblage of animals, but, rather, provides the name that is to be used for a taxon whatever taxonomic limits and rank are given to it." (My emphasis.)

Paradoxically, the avowed aim is not to delimit the taxa named and defined according to this nomenclature; this exercise therefore consists in naming groups with fuzzy boundaries. Logically, despite the fact that systematists have been applying the rules of the rank-based codes for over a century, quarrels over taxon boundaries continue, even for taxa with fairly stable phylogenies. This partly explains why the name *Mammalia* has been applied to numerous nested clades, which could be called, from smallest to largest (non-exhaustive list), *Theria*, *Mammalia*, *Mammaliaformes*, *Mammaliamorpha*, *Cynodontia*, *Therapsida*, and even *Synapsida* (Rowe & Gauthier, 1992). This nomenclatural confusion partly reflects the fact that the fossil record shows the gradual emergence of mammalian morphology within the synapsids, between the origin of this group about 330 Ma ago, in the Carboniferous, and the appearance of the crown clade, in the Jurassic. Could this nomenclatural ambiguity, desired by the regulating bodies of the rank-based nomenclatural codes and particularly obvious in paleontology, be beneficial?

Pioneers of rank-based nomenclature had clearly perceived the limitations of this system and the need to replace it, at some point. Thus, **Alphonse de Candolle** (1867: 10-11), in this remarkable passage from what is considered to be the first code of botanical nomenclature, wrote:

> "However, a time will come when the current plant forms having all been described, herbaria offering certain types, botanists having made, undone, sometimes remade, raised or lowered, and above all modified several hundred thousand groups, from classes to simple varieties of species, the number of synonyms having become infinitely more considerable than that of the valid taxa, science will need some great renovation in its principles. This nomenclature, which we are trying to improve, will then appear like an old scaffolding, formed of parts painfully renewed, one by one, and surrounded by debris made up of all the rejected parts which will form a more or less embarrassing clutter. The edifice of science will have been built, but it will not be sufficiently free from all that has served to raise it. Then, perhaps, there will arise something completely different from Linnaean nomenclature, something which will be imagined to give stable names to definitive groups."

> *This is the secret of the future, and of a future that is still very distant.*

This quote evokes well the challenges faced by systematists in the last decades, even though it was published over 150 years ago! However, perhaps de Candolle was looking even further into the future, as we still lack “definitive groups”. Nevertheless, a nomenclature “quite different from Linnaean nomenclature”, as evoked by de Candolle, already exists. This is phylogenetic nomenclature, for which some basic principles were laid down by Hennig, but which was mostly developed between 1984 and 2000 (Gauthier, 1986; de Queiroz & Gauthier, 1994). A major milestone in its development was reached in 2020, with the implementation of the *PhyloCode* (Cantino & de Queiroz, 2020). This new
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nomenclature can be seen as the logical, perhaps even inevitable, culmination of the spectacular progress made in evolutionary biology since the early 19th century, and in phylogenetics since the 1950s. This fascinating story, from prehistory to these very recent developments, is told in my book, recently published by CRC Press (Laurin, 2023b).

References:

Berlin, B. 2014. - *Ethnobiological classification: Principles of categorization of plants and animals in traditional societies*. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 354 pp.

Brown, C. H. 2010. - Development of agriculture in prehistoric Mesoamerica: The linguistic evidence; pp. 71-107 in J. Staller and M. Carrasco (ed.), *Pre-Columbian foodways: interdisciplinary approaches to food, culture, and markets in ancient Mesoamerica*. Springer, New York.

Cantino, P.D. & K. de Queiroz. 2020. - International Code of Phylogenetic Nomenclature (PhyloCode): A Phylogenetic Code of Biological Nomenclature. CRC Press: Boca Raton, Florida. http://phylonames.org/code/

de Candolle, A. 1867. - *Lois de la nomenclature botanique adoptées par le Congrès international de botanique tenu à Paris en août 1867: suivies d'une 2e édition de l'introduction historique et du commentaire qui accompagnaient la rédaction préparatoire présentée au Congrès*. H. Georg: Genève, 64 pp.

de Queiroz, K. & J. Gauthier. 1994. - Toward a phylogenetic system of biological nomenclature. *Trends in Ecology and Evolution*, 9: 27-31.

Dubois, A., A. Ohler & R. Pyron. 2021. - New concepts and methods for phylogenetic taxonomy and nomenclature in zoology, exemplified by a new ranked cladonomy of recent amphibians (Lissamphibia). *Megataxa*, 5: 1-738.

Frost, D.R., T. Grant, J. Faivovich, R.H. Bain, A. Haas, C.F.B. Haddad, R.O. de Sá, A. Channing, M. Wilkinson, S.C. Donnellan, C.J. Raxworthy, J.A. Campbell, B. Blotto, P. Moler, R.C. Drewes, R.A. Nussbaum, J.D. Lynch, D.M. Green & W.C. Wheeler. 2006. - The amphibian tree of

life. *Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History*, 297: 1-370.

Gauthier, J. 1986. - Saurischian monophyly and the origin of birds. In: Padian K, ed. *The origin of birds and the evolution of flight*. San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences. 1-55.

Haeckel, E. 1866. - Generelle Morphologie der Organismen. Reimer: Berlin, 1036 pp.

Laurin M. 2023a. - The PhyloCode: The logical outcome of millennia of evolution of biological nomenclature? *Zoologica Scripta* 52: 543-555.

Laurin, M. 2023b. - The Advent of PhyloCode: The Continuing Evolution of Biological Nomenclature. CRC Press: Boca Raton, Fl, xv + 209 pp.

Magnol, P. 1689. - *Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum in quo familiae plantarum per tabulas disponuntur*. Pech: Montpellier, 79 pp.

Rowe, T. & J. Gauthier. 1992. - Ancestry, paleontology, and definition of the name Mammalia. *Systematic Biology*, 41: 372-378.

Centre de Recherche en Paléontologie - Paris (CR2P), UMR 7207, CNRS/MNHN/SU, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, CP 38, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231 Paris cedex 05 (France)

michel.laurin@mnhn.fr

Diving for Fossils

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Here **Aaron Alford** donned a dry suit to survive colder waters in order to excavate a Miocene dolphin skull. Photo submitted by Walt Johns. ❌</figcaption></figure>