Verts., Inverts., & Cladistics

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In a historical sense I think Per is right, that vertebrate paleontologists
were initially attracted to cladistic methodology because of the complex
morphological nature of many fossil vertebrates along with the lack (in
many instances) of tight stratigraphic control.  However, the
morphometrician in me suggests that all fossil morphologies are much more
complex than we often realize.  In order to demonstrate this to students I
have often read various technical descriptions of fossil species to classes
and asked them to draw a picture of the species based solely on the
information contained in that description.  A comparison of the drawings
always brings howls of laughter from the class but I think it also makes an
important point.  Even the "simple" morphologies of many fossil
invertebrates are exceedingly complex when they are broken down into their
component parts and those parts described as geometric constructs.
Character matrices for many fossil invertebrate and plant taxa are often
comparable in size to the matrices on which vertebrate phylogenetic
systematics is based - at least for many groups.  I'd just like to
reinforce the point that while the obvious complexity of vertebrate
skeletal morphology made this group and obvious choice for early
applications of cladistic analysis, that does not mean (and I know Per did
not intend his comment to be read) that cladistics is of limited utility to
invertebrate paleontologists because the morphologies of their fossils are
"simpler" in some way.  I don't believe that this is necessarily the case.




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Norman MacLeod
Senior Research Fellow
N.MacLeod@nhm.ac.uk (Internet)
N.MacLeod@uk.ac.nhm (Janet)

Address: Dept. of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
                     Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD

Office Phone: 071-938-9006
Dept. FAX:  071-938-9277
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