In War, Truth Is the First Casualty *

As penned in verse by T.S. Elliot (1971), the naming of animals is a difficult matter. The process of defining species involves important biological issues and, more recently, some important conservation issues. Unfortunately, it remains a process without a clear, detailed, operational methodology, and therefore it is susceptible to bias. Our article on geopolitical species was motivated by concern that such a bias has influenced the taxonomy of an endangered sea turtle. We applaud the editors of Conservation Biology for encouraging the articulation of diverse viewpoints. We also thank J. M. Grady, E. D. McCoy, P. C. H. Pritchard, J. M. Quattro, and K. Shrader-Frechette for their critical evaluation and insightful comments published in the preceding commentaries. In this reply, we briefly summarize the main points of our article and then address some of the specific issues raised by each of the commentaries. Finally, we attempt to connect this forum to larger issues invoked by the haunting comment of a reviewer: "We all know it is wrong to tell lies, except to confuse the enemy in wartime." If conservation is a war, what are the duties of conservationists and scientists in this war? Is it possible that biologists and conservationists can arrive at different names for the same animal based on the ethical tenets 1 or 3 (respectively) identified by Shrader-Frechette & McCoy? This dilemma goes to the heart of the black turtle controversy and reveals the often schizophrenic nature of conservation biology, which encompasses both scientific investigations and advocacy. In our article, we strove to convey the following points: (1) Conservation priorities and systematic rank are inextricably linked. This linkage is formalized in legislation such as the U.S. Endangered Species Act and in the scientific definitions of evolutionarily significant units (Bowen 1998). (2) The relationship between conservation and taxonomy must be unidirectional; conservation strategies should be influenced by taxonomy, but taxonomy cannot be influenced by conservation priorities. Nonetheless, there is a clear trend among conservationists to applaud the promotion of new species, whereas taxonomic demotion is regarded as detrimental to preservation efforts. (3) Chelonia agassizii likely is a case of conservation driving taxonomy, because no hard data are available to support species status for the black turtle. (4) In contrast to unsupported taxonomy, geopolitical management units have a legitimate role in conservation programs. Grady and Quattro provide a clear explanation of concordance principles and a strong argument for their use in taxonomy. Regardless of the underlying mechanisms of speciation (selection, drift, etc.), as isolated gene pools diverge, they accumulate diagnostic characteristics. In general, the shorter the time since separation, the fewer the number of diagnostic characters. In the period immediately following an isolation event, species may differ in no characters if extrinsically reproductively isolated, or as few as one character (perhaps gametic incompatibility) if intrinsically reproductively isolated. It is important to note, however, that some characters will not diverge. The attributes of shared ancestry are never completely washed away. Hence, character concordance as described by Grady and Quattro is a prudent approach that can provide a reliable operational method to assess species status. Under these pragmatic guidelines, species are isolated gene pools for which a preponderance of characters are concordant in demonstrating divergence. Three important questions should be addressed when character concordance is applied. First, how many characters must be examiined to accurately represent the species? The answer depends on whether the assessment is direct (i.e., a test of reproductive isolation) or indirect (i.e., morphological, ecological, or genetic differences). Assuming that the assessment is indirect (the most common circumstance), a modest number of concordant characters (relative to the huge pool of possible charac*Attributed to Aeschylus. Paper submitted May 24, 1999; revised manauscript accepted May 27, 1999.