# Split vs. Lump?



## Heather (Aug 29, 2006)

Yes, I'm opening that can of worms tonight, and I'll tell you why. 
I cannot make up my mind. Just when I think I am a lumper for taxonomical reasons, someone says something like this:



John said:


> Man generally makes a total mess of the stewardship of orchid species. "Let's just cross besseae and dalessandroi, and the peruvian and ecuadorian forms of besseae into each other until we have some bastard seed that we call a true species." It's already been done. How many other species have we "muddied" so far? Paph philippinense is well on it's way.



Which makes me totally agree with the idea of being a splitter. When you take something like philippinense and it's varieties, and cross them, there's no telling what you end up with. Same with John's example of besseae. Now that dalessandroi is recognized as a species in its' own right, we have a hybrid named Jersey, but because that was not done from the outset, we've also got all of these "bastard" species floating around which aren't besseae, and aren't dalessandroi, may be Jersey but who the hell really knows, and yet because there was no real distinction made at the time of breeding we cannot really say for sure what we've got, and we have to go around counting horns on staminodes and such nonsense. If they'd just split them off in the first place, things would be a lot clearer. 

Now, I realize that geographic distribution and forms that show up singly in a colony of others are just flukes, and not necessarily taxonomically different enough to warrant species status, but some of these plants that are now being broken out and given species status, well, I think we'd have avoided a lot of mess if we'd just started with calling it a species in the first place. 

So, someone talk me down from my precipitous cliff of becoming a splitter. I'm teetering here!


----------



## kentuckiense (Aug 29, 2006)

I'm simply in favor of recognizing the morphological differences that occur in different populations. The more information about a plant, the better. I don't know what that makes me.


----------



## Marco (Aug 29, 2006)

Well, I really don't care about science or taxomonologicallysomethingorthe other. I don't care if their seperated based on stolon growth or how cell division is different from one sub-division from another. I know that other people it meants a whole lot which is cool. Variety indeed is the spice of it all. To me its just all semantics. Just give me a name and show me a picture and were good to go on the visual association. If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck then to me its a duck. But now if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck but it has rainbow feathers. It's still a duck oke:


----------



## Jon in SW Ohio (Aug 29, 2006)

So am I a splitting lumper, or a lumping splitter??

Jon
________
Marijuana Seed


----------



## Heather (Aug 29, 2006)

You people are not helping here....

Marco - what if it quacks like a duck, but looks like a goose? Wouldn't you be confused and frustrated?


----------



## Marco (Aug 29, 2006)

Heather nope - then its a goose it just sounds like a duck...lol....im a visual person  

well to not help you further. If you split your essentially lumping other things together. oke: :rollhappy:

So then it really depends wether its a vertical, lateral or even diagonal ( i dont think all these exist im just putting it here to try to sound all scientific) similarities. Because you can group all "alba" flowers together. Or you can group "red" flowers together and just give a different name like "coruleas" wait thats for blue....nevermind lol.

-------

edit : im just being a pain in the butt  . Please carry on on the normal discussion.


----------



## silence882 (Aug 29, 2006)

I think I may have found a flaw in your line of reasoning... You're basing your arguments on plants that are already in cultivation. Taxonomy depends upon observations of plants in the wild. A lot of armchair taxonomists spout off about the differences between species, never having seen the range of variation in nature.

Paph. laevigatum is a good example of names in cultivation gone awry. All the taxonomic literature I've read says laevigatum is a synonym of philippinense, yet the name 'laevigatum' is everywhere in horticulture. Why? Orchid breeders / growers / resellers would much rather have 2 species to sell than 1. Paph. philippinense is a widespread, (yet locally rare) extremely variable species. Conclusions about the natural variation within a species cannot be made from plants in cultivation. (a similar argument is often made about Paph. roebelenii, but I will refrain from pontificating because I don't have the original description)

Next example! Phrag. reticulatum and Phrag. czerwiakowianum are conspecific with Phrag. boissierianum. I base this on McCook's observation that she could stand in the middle of a single population and see examples of all three 'species.' The differences between the three taxa were a result of either natural variation within the species or the age of the flowers (open with straight petals which twist over time). In cultivation, however, all 3 taxa are sold as good species.

And one nitpicky thing: 'Ecuadorian' Phrag besseae's are different than Phrag. besseae var. dalessandroi. The population of Phrag. besseae var. dalessandroi was found in the same general area as Phrag. besseae in Ecuador (along the Rio Zamora or one of its small tributaries). I agree with those that consider dalessandroi a variant of besseae because a distinct population (or populations?) with flowers showing minor, yet distinct morphological differences has been found. Yes, it would have been nice if the two had been recognized as separate taxa and breeding done more carefully, but the problem only involves those in cultivation. The two varieties still 'exist' separately in the wild.

As you may guess, IMHO lumping rules.

--Stephen


----------



## couscous74 (Aug 29, 2006)

I'm with Marco - I don't care.

If it quacks, can I eat it?


----------



## Heather (Aug 29, 2006)

Okay. Stephen's good. 

Next!  

However, I don't think philippinense is widespread today. Show me some photos of plants available today (in cultivation) that have no roebelinii in them. Please. The nebulosity makes me crazy! And yet, my philippinese and my roebeliniis look like completely different plants. Can anyone give me specific grexes of one or the other? 
I understand what you are saying though about plants in cultivation. I guess I would like to see some in situ photos of all of the philippinense complex to compare to the cultivated ones.

I know, I obsess over issues with this species, but there are so many variations, and I want clarity, dammit!


----------



## Marco (Aug 29, 2006)

couscous74 said:


> I'm with Marco - I don't care.
> 
> If it quacks, can I eat it?



Hey make sure to share!!!!  I'm a breast man. mmmmm


----------



## gore42 (Aug 29, 2006)

I think that there are a couple of issues here:

1) The validity of different forms of orchids, and

2) Whether the forms in question deserve species level designation.

For me, the first issue is the most important and complex. Within many animal and plant populations, there are not distinct borders for populations, and in the wild there are individuals that have mixtures of traits.... I think Stephen pointed out a good example of this with the Phrag boiserianum examples. This seems like sloppy science to me, more than anything else.

I don't think that this is the 'lumpers' v. 'splitters' debate, though. There are certainly groups of orchids that, in the wild, exhibit certain traits that are population specific and are significantly different from other populations. 

The lumper/splitter debate is really about issue 2. On this matter, I don't think it makes any difference at all; the matter is purely semantic as long as the terms are used within a defined context. That is to say, "species" as a category is a completely artificial designation; it doesn't exist in nature... it was created by us as a way of organizing our world. As such, it doesnt make any difference at all whether we choose one criterion or another to define the category, as long as we make clear what criterion we are using. 

I think that in most cases, this is what it comes down to.

Consider this example from Cribb (since Stephen has already mentioned it): Paph philippinense var. roebelenii.

Cribb must be one of the best known lumpers. He says "Plants introduced as P. roebelenii do seem to have consistently long pendent petals and it seems most satisfactory to recognise them at varietal level as var. roebelenii" (Cribb 1987:99). 

As we know, this "variety" is found only on the island of Luzon. To me, that seems like a distinct population with distinct characteristics. Again, Cribb recognizes that there are differences, and states that the variety "Differs from the typical variety in having rather larger flowers with longer pendant petals up to 13cm long"(Cribb 1987:100).

So, here, we have a species for which issue number 1 is not an issue at all. The issue is what we call it. Cribb's definition of species says that it's not a species, other's definitions will tell you that it is. For my part, I don't care. The only advantage to keeping it as a variety is that the name still shows that there is an evolutionary relationship between the two forms. I don't think that we need to rely on a name to pass on that knowledge, though. Anyway, when there is dispute, I always try to remember to give both names when I'm writing something, so that the reader can take his/her pick.

In my own field (Biological Anthropology) I'm a lumper, though... usually 

As Ever,
Matthew Gore


----------



## Rick (Aug 29, 2006)

I think its a natural human trait to agonize over black and white divisions within shades of gray, but I generally agree with Stephen.

For some reason it seems that the collection locality data is the first data lost once a plant enters cultivation, and given the poor accesability and generally low density of orchid populations its generally a small mater of time before everyone is fighting over minute differences in staminode shape to differentiate species.

Hopefully DNA analysis will get cheap and easy enough to help straighen out allot of plants that have lost there population data during cultivation.


----------



## SlipperFan (Aug 29, 2006)

Rick said:


> Hopefully DNA analysis will get cheap and easy enough to help straighen out allot of plants that have lost there population data during cultivation.


That's what I am hoping for, also. A nice, neat, definitive package. Until then, it's all very confusing, especially as has been noted, with regard to hybrids.


----------



## Heather (Aug 29, 2006)

DNA Analysis would definitely help us all out. Wouldn't that be refreshing! Think of all the tag re-writing we could be doing.


----------



## Eric Muehlbauer (Aug 29, 2006)

Part of the problem is that there really is no clear cut line between species...its more of a continuum (especially in rapidly evolving and speciating orchids), and its really a matter of where you choose to draw the line. If you go over the orchid literature, you will find that the real taxonomists tend to be either lumpers or conservative splitters. The real splitters are not really taxonomists...look at Jack Fowlie, who never saw a species or subspecies he couldn't name, or dealers...how many names can be traced back to Ray Rands (ex: primulinum "liltii")? Take care, Eric


----------



## Drorchid (Aug 30, 2006)

I have to agree for the most part with Stephen, Mathew and Eric.

My personal take on being a lumper or a splitter depends on the situation. Often the "Species concept" is a man-made concept. In the wild you can have a bunch of different populations that go from one extreme to another, and sometimes even within a population you can find a lot of variation, so if you put all the different "genotypes" next to each other it is hard to draw a line where one "species" starts and the next one begins. It is like having 100 straws that all differ from each other by 1 mm, if you put them all next to each other you cannot draw a line between them.

If you would take the two extreme genotypes and put them next to each other they would look like different species......(or if you would take the smallest straw and the longest straw and put them next to each other, they would clearly differ in size).....and that is the problem when you are dealing with a highly variable species....if two plants from a "variable species" like Paph. philippinense or Phrag. besseae get collected from different populations that represent the two extremes they would look like two distinct species while in fact they are just two different genotypes from a highly variable species. 

However if separate populations from a variable species, like Paph. philippinense, due to climate conditions......say the climate gets drier or hotter....get isolated from each other......say, they only can survive on separate mountain tops or islands that are isolated from each other, so you get no more gene flow from one population to the next.......over time you will get different selection pressures, and some genes will get lost, and you will get new genes (due to mutations) that will appear, so over time these populations will start to look more and more different......at this point of time if someone collects specimens from each population, even though it is clear they are all related I would consider them to be different species......an example of this would be the 3 species: Paph. stonei, Paph. kolopakingii, and Paph. platyphyllum.....It is clear that they are all related, and at one point of time they probably derived from the same widespread species, but due to geographical isolation they are now considered as separate species.

So I would consider my self a lumper if you clearly have gene flow going from one population to another, but I would consider my self a splitter if the populations are isolated, and you have no gene flow going on from one population to the next.

This is just my take on things.....

Robert


----------



## littlefrog (Aug 30, 2006)

DNA analysis has been mentioned. But it won't work. Why? Many many reasons. Some of which. 1) You would need an accurate reference population. If the taxonomists can't agree what species are which, how are you going to get a reference? You would want several (many, actually) 'representative' plants from each species. 2) You have to presume that the populations that are similar enough to warrant the need for DNA testing have dissimilar enough markers to separate. This might be possible, but again it would require an iron clad reference population, which we will never have. 3) DNA doesn't ever answer the question 'are these two separate species?'. Not any better than staminode differences, petal stance, pouch, or any other physical character that is used in taxonomic diagnosis. 

Regardless of what we do, we are stuck with a human trying to label things. Nature doesn't care about labels. Nature doesn't care about hybrid swarms at the borders of distinct populations. Nature doesn't know what a distinct population is... It is our human desire to name everything that causes the mess.

DNA would be useful to determine parentage for hybrids of unknown provenance (assuming we had suitable reference sequences). And it certainly helps us figure out the evolutionary relationships between populations of plants (sometimes with surprising results!). But it does nothing to decide the lumping vs. splitting debate.

Yes, I is a bioinformatician...


----------



## Mark (Aug 30, 2006)

In my world it really doesn't matter unless you're planning on returning plants to the wild. In captivity selective breeding within a species or to make hybrids is going to push the dna farther from the "natural" composition one would find in a population in the wild than normal evolutionary processes would in our lifetimes.


----------



## gore42 (Aug 30, 2006)

Rob,

You're exactly right... I'm glad that you wrote it, I was going to write the same thing. DNA analysis won't help  

- Matthew Gore


----------



## Jon in SW Ohio (Aug 30, 2006)

For Heather:

These three plants all originally came from Rands as wild collected plants many years ago. I am not saying definitely that they represent the "type" forms from the descriptions, just that they are as is from the wild population they came from.

Paph. laevigatum






Paph. philippinense





Paph. roebellenii





Jon
________
Medical Marijuana Dispensaries


----------



## PHRAG (Aug 30, 2006)

Jon, I have been looking at dozens of photos of philippinense trying to spot differences between the three types. Can someone please clarify what the difference is between the plants above? To my eyes, they look like three of the same exact species with just normal growth variations. Educate me, please.


----------



## Jon in SW Ohio (Aug 30, 2006)

That is almost exactly what defines a splitter vs. a lumper. If you can't see the difference, you're a lumper; if you easily can, you're a splitter.

To me, the three plants above are different as night and day. Pick any of the three at random and show me it in bloom or out, and I will know without guessing which is which instantly every time. Are these differences something tangible that I can write a definite key to identify? Not really, the differences are extremely minor. 
The keys I've read to differentiate them don't necessarily correspond either. I personally have never seen a roebellenii without green veining on the staminode which is supposed to be one of the key identifing characteristics from the original description.

As said before, I'm a splitting lumper (or lumping splitter). I see diffrences, but prefer the use of formas and varieties instead of species. I personally don't see the big difference between besseae and d'allesandoi...they are both small red micropetalum phrags! But, do I think they should be differentiated somehow? ABSOLUTELY! That is why my tag says Phrag. besseae var. d'allesandroi. If it isn't a very clear and consise difference like say besseae and schlimii, I don't like to use different species names.

Jon
________
Apple games


----------



## Heather (Aug 30, 2006)

Well, I guess I'm just going to have to come to terms with being a splitting lumper (or vice versa) as I feel pretty much exactly the way Jon does about some of these. 

re: the philippinense group. It is subtle, but I also think I could make a good guess as to which was which between the three if shown plants out of bloom. Actually the roebelinii vs. philippinense blooms I find harder to distinguish than the plants on many occasions. P. laevigatum though, it's just a different fish altogether in my opinion.


----------



## Eric Muehlbauer (Aug 30, 2006)

When my oldest son was in college, he did a research project for Dr. Ken Cameron, analysing DNA of several strap-leafed species...I donated leaves from "sanderianum", roth, philipinense and stonei....he had to send abroad for samples of genuine sanderianum (thanks to Simon Wellinga)...the results were interesting to me....as I expected, my "sanderianum" was not what it was labelled...most likely P of E...as nearly all sand's were at the time I got the seedling...but interestingly, my "roth" turned out not to be a straight species either...in fact, I think only philipinense was clearly what it was supposed to be ...and that was the only one of the group that originated as a collected plant way back when (I believe...). Overall, though, this type of DNA research focuses on only a few genes....and I could see how this would not be usefull in distinguishing closely related species. Overall, in terms of splitting and lumping, for the most part, we are looking at these plants horticulturally, not scientifically...so I am willing to accept that P. hirsutissimum and esquirolei may be conspecific, on a scientific level, but in my collection, they would be separate ...speaking of which, whatever happened to straight hirsutissimum? All that seems to be around now is esquirolei...and it is far more difficult to grow and bloom than the ordinary hirs., which I miss greatly......Take care, Eric


----------



## silence882 (Aug 30, 2006)

For the phillipense/roebelenii/laevigatum issue, what definitions are everyone working off of? What makes a laevigatum different from a philippinense or a roebelenii? And what is the source of these definitions?

I've gotten a few plants so far that have bloomed out other than what their tag says (as I'm sure everyone has). One of these was a Paph. glaucophyllum from Oak Hill that turned out to be an infra-sectional hybrid. However, at the time it bloomed I posted a pic on SOF as 'Paph. glaucophyllum' because that's what the tag said. I must admit, I was inadvertantly helping contribute to the confusion over the correct identity of the name.

Another plant I bought was a Paph. gardineri. Oak Hill offered it as a good paph. species and I was new to orchids. It bloomed as a typical wilhelminiae. The description of Cyp. gardineri is a poor-quality line drawing of a bloom of the glanduliferum / praestans / wilhelminiae complex. There's no reason that the name gardineri should still be in use in botany or horticulture. However, vendors want more 'species' to sell, so there it is. Like laevigatum, the definition of gardineri has been informally created in horticulture, but no one is quite sure what it means because there are (as far as I know) no reliable written descriptions.



Drorchid said:


> However if separate populations from a variable species, like Paph. philippinense, due to climate conditions......say the climate gets drier or hotter....get isolated from each other......say, they only can survive on separate mountain tops or islands that are isolated from each other, so you get no more gene flow from one population to the next.......over time you will get different selection pressures, and some genes will get lost, and you will get new genes (due to mutations) that will appear, so over time these populations will start to look more and more different......at this point of time if someone collects specimens from each population, even though it is clear they are all related I would consider them to be different species......an example of this would be the 3 species: Paph. stonei, Paph. kolopakingii, and Paph. platyphyllum.....It is clear that they are all related, and at one point of time they probably derived from the same widespread species, but due to geographical isolation they are now considered as separate species.
> 
> So I would consider my self a lumper if you clearly have gene flow going from one population to another, but I would consider my self a splitter if the populations are isolated, and you have no gene flow going on from one population to the next.



I totally agree with this. New species arise when climactic/geologic changes occur leading to geographic separation of populations. Another good example of this is the species of Subgenus Cochlopetalum. Fowlie (in an OD article from the early 80's, I forget which exactly) proposed that all the sequential multifloral species descended from a single ancestor which was limestone-dependent. Sumatra and Java used to be primarily limestone, but over time molten lava turning to rock from the gap between tectonic plates which the islands sit on gradually raised the islands. As the limestone layers rose in elevation, the rains they were subjected to became cooler, causing them to erode more quickly. As a result, the limestone that remains on Sumatra and Java is in scattered outcrops. The once widespread common ancestor was now relegated to the limestone outcrops that remained and distinct, geographically isolated populations formed. Over time, these populations changed enough to be considered unique species (by most).

(Although, one species adapted to exist on volcanic rock, P. victoria-mariae)

--Stephen


----------



## SlipperFan (Aug 30, 2006)

gore42 said:


> Rob,
> 
> You're exactly right... I'm glad that you wrote it, I was going to write the same thing. DNA analysis won't help
> 
> - Matthew Gore


Poof! There goes my dream....


----------



## Heather (Aug 30, 2006)

silence882 said:


> I totally agree with this. New species arise when climactic/geologic changes occur leading to geographic separation of populations. Another good example of this is the species of Subgenus Cochlopetalum. Fowlie (in an OD article from the early 80's, I forget which exactly) proposed that all the sequential multifloral species descended from a single ancestor which was limestone-dependent. Sumatra and Java used to be primarily limestone, but over time molten lava turning to rock from the gap between tectonic plates which the islands sit on gradually raised the islands. As the limestone layers rose in elevation, the rains they were subjected to became cooler, causing them to erode more quickly. As a result, the limestone that remains on Sumatra and Java is in scattered outcrops. The once widespread common ancestor was now relegated to the limestone outcrops that remained and distinct, geographically isolated populations formed. Over time, these populations changed enough to be considered unique species (by most).
> 
> (Although, one species adapted to exist on volcanic rock, P. victoria-mariae)
> 
> --Stephen



Okay, that's just fascinating! Thank you....great discussion.


----------



## myxodex (Aug 31, 2006)

What a great discussion ... nothing quite like a can of worms to get one's teeth into. Can't resist .. here are my thoughts.

As hobbyists or horticulturists we are concerned about visual differences and want to be able to label them. So am I a splitter? I think it depends on the context and the application. Drorchid raised some very important points. In the wild species exist as populations ... for some folk species are simply isolated genetic pools and the genetic variance within them is determined by enviromental factors and selection pressure. From an evolutionary point of view species survival depends in the long run on this genetic variability. So when it comes to the situation that we want to re-introduce a species to the wild, to my mind it would be folly to select only our favourite cultivar ... we need to replace a population with some genetic variability. The question is then do we have this genetic variability in cultivation for rare species? If we do not wish to introduce hybrids into the wild then we need to know where species boundaries are by definition. But then the species definitions are in some sense artificial, imposed and always changing ... yesterday a hybrid tomorrow not! Phew! what a mess! I think I'm a lumper-splitter hybrid!

As for the DNA sequencing approach I'm not 100% pessimistic (only 99%), but we are far, ... very far from having the capacity to do this properly. We would need to gather the complete genomic sequence of thousands of wild plants ... find the most informative regions (hugely problematic) ... use a variety of clustering methods to find natural groupings. If the different methods agree (big if) then you have a map which would tell you the genomic boundaries of a species. Each sample or individual sequence would be a prototype but also belong to a group. Cultivated hybrids we hope would fall into the gaps of this map and show only weak matching to any of the parental species prototypes ... so goes the dream. Financially impossible! However, using selected DNA sequences as has been done so far doesn't give totally wacky results, but needs a lot of improving. Perhaps there is a useful compromise. It is very early days in the field of molecular phylogeny ... we probably shouldn't throw the baby out of the window just yet! 

In the meantime I'll just enjoy my orchids, species and hybrids alike.
Cheers,
Tim


----------



## Jon in SW Ohio (Aug 31, 2006)

As of right now, I truely hate the genetic approach. This is because of one thing and it makes me scowl at the mere thought of it. 

Sophronitis.

That's right. The easiest, most clearly defined genus in the whole world, and they had to screw it up based on genetic findings. I'm not going to go into species differences, which is a true splitter/lumper debate on it's own and this isn't the Cattleya Forum.
What I'm talking about is grouping Laelias that look more like Cattleyas into the genus Sophronitis! I don't care what genetics say, if it is not small and red (or yellow on expensive ones) it is NOT a Sophronitis and I will NEVER label it as such. Sophronitis purpurata....*scowl*

Rant over.

Jon
________
Herbal vaporizer


----------



## VAAlbert (Nov 26, 2006)

myxodex said:


> As for the DNA sequencing approach I'm not 100% pessimistic (only 99%), but we are far, ... very far from having the capacity to do this properly. ... so goes the dream. Financially impossible! However, using selected DNA sequences as has been done so far doesn't give totally wacky results, but needs a lot of improving. Perhaps there is a useful compromise. It is very early days in the field of molecular phylogeny ... we probably shouldn't throw the baby out of the window just yet!



Really, the technology is here; the principal problem is focusing in on the right questions. Finances aren't really a huge problem either. A major reason for current pessimism is that DNA sequencing is not as informative among closely related plants as we'd like. What will be much better are what are called 'coding simple sequence repeats' (SSRs, EST-SSRs), which I and others use frequently with groups that you can't even get a phylogenetic tree from. The idea here is not to link all plant individuals by an unambiguous phylogeny, but to gain population-level insight into their evolutionary background. You need to make 1-3 large investments (maybe $15,000 each?) plus what's required to continue lab costs. Still, no approach is foolproof, but this is the way I'd go with slippers at this point if I were still working on them.

Best wishes,

Vic Albert


----------



## Rick (Nov 26, 2006)

Wow Victor.

Haven't heard from you in a while. Good to hear from you again.:clap:


----------



## VAAlbert (Nov 27, 2006)

Thanks, Rick.

I still grow them, but haven't done research on them for a very long time. I've thought about trying a few things, however. For example, the Mexipedium story isn't finished, so far as I'm concerned. The support for Mexipedium as the sister group of Phragmipedium vs. sister to Paphiopedilum, vs. sister to both (!), isn't really there in the published data. The published tree from DNA sequences is not the only tree one can get from the data; it depends on how the sequences are aligned.

Regards,

Vic.


----------



## NYEric (Nov 27, 2006)

I like Heather's original post and would prefer splitting. The issue is really created when species are intermingled in the wild. I'm not going say one is better than the other, rather it would be great to know which hybrid is really what it's ancestry tells us it is.


----------



## slippertalker (Nov 27, 2006)

In the end, what difference does it make whether the species are lumped or split? As long as we understand what label is on which species, I don't care whether it is labeled as a species or a variety of a species. Looking at several of the above postings, it's clear that there are many mis-labeled plants, and hybrids named as species which causes even more confusion.


----------



## VAAlbert (Nov 27, 2006)

Well,

Species are for the most part artificial constructs, usually based on the opinion of a taxonomist. Don't confuse taxonomy with nomenclature - taxonomy is a classification - a system, whereas nomenclature encompasses the study of validly and invalidly published names used in classifications. Non-objective classifications involve 'hand waving'. That is, taxonomists working purely at the alpha level who do not try to subject characteristics (e.g., morphological, molecular, karyotypic) to objective phylogenetic reconstruction make non-objective taxonomies. Of course, choice of characteristics can be non-objective as well, but minimizing unnecessary assumptions (Ockham's razor) will always be more powerful than utilizing more.

So, where does this leave one with lumping vs. splitting? Well, I'd first want to make sure I'm using the most objectively derived classification. I'll put in a vote for *basically* phylogenetic ones based on a particular body of data and a repeatable algorithmic procedure (did some of this myself). Then I'd make sure that I was following the rules of nomenclature for proper use of names in my classification. Of course, one must also bear in mind that a particular collection of data may not be entirely representative of the names chosen to represent that data! As has been pointed out, population-level variation can be significant, and the actual status of all slipper orchid gene flow will likely not be determined in reasonable time.

So, a classification winds up with a taxonomist encompassing a certain amount of variation into what he/she calls a species. That amount of variation is non-objective, and will not be revealed by standard phylogenetic methods. No use even thinking about it. So ----- names on plants, in my opinion, should follow as an objective look at evolutionary history as possible, then take the species level with a grain of salt where variation is great. Paph. armeniacum and micranthum, e.g., pose no problems -- but lots of Lorifolia Phrags do, hence the difference in what taxonomists argue about.

Nomenclaturalists will go about the task of validating names, describing new taxa, etc., and this is basically bookkeeping ---- not biology, and the endeavor does NOT result in better species concepts. Remember the difference between taxonomy (systems) and nomenclature (assigning names to be used in systems). The best species concepts, in my opinion, are (again) those that require the fewest number of excess assumptions to maintain them. So, one may need to lump sometimes in order to retain economy of assumptions, and split other times -- all based on whatever evidence is at hand -- and I believe that evidence should be made available in a form such that other persons can repeatably arrive at conclusions as often as possible. I co-described Mexipedium so that Phrag and Paph could be better held apart based on morphological evidence; this was based on both DNA and morphological data. I later sunk Mex and Phrag into Paph as an alternative, should others view the characters I used to separate Mex, Paph, and Phrag inadequate. Both classifications recognize the same organismal groups - only the hierarchical levels of the names are different.

So, like my Mex example, I say let the taxonomists and nomenclaturalists not take themselves and their experience too seriously! If you like, Mex can still be a Phrag, but then my *opinion* is that you lose key characters for identification -- though you lose *nothing* in terms of a tracing of evolutionary history. 

If non-objective techniques for obtaining data were not available today for mammalogy, to give an example, standard taxonomy would probably not include a group that includes hippos and whales.

Best wishes,

Vic


----------

