Biological Systematics: Principles and Applications

Rating:
Summary: Systematics put into Perspective
Review: Not necessarily just the authors point on the subject of systematics. Schuh provides an objective look at the classification of a taxon and the fundemental basis for understanding such endevors. Although the disagreements of other scientists in the subject area becomes overwhelming, Schuh provides a well written technical look at what is involved in systematics. Surely not intended for a novice in the subject area of biology.

Rating:
Summary: Great for the right reader.
Review: Systematics is the art, the science, and the ongoing debate of assigning organisms to phylogenetic groups. If you're from bioinformatics, you may think, "Oh. Tree-building." This book is much more fundmental: it talks about the biological data and philosophical approach needed for any kind of organization. This book informs the beliefs behind your choice of algorithms and data to involve.

Modern bioinformaticists usually assume that tree-building moves forward from DNA or protein strings. That blinds us to the 200 years of classification based on physical features, behavior, and even geographic distribution. In that time, huge numbers of debates have sprung up, too many to list here. A few caught my interest though. First, suppose that "all pterogyte insects have wings". The fight starts when an apparent pterogyte shows up with no wings. Personally, I don't see the problem. If having wings is a defining feature, then it's a non-pterogyte, mutations excepted. If having wings is a pattern we noticed but not part of the definition, then the pattern needs work. I'm not a taxonomist, though.

Another debate (p.53) is whether to accept parsimony, the principle of least mechanism, as a taxonomic tool. The objectors claim that it's suspect because of the assumptions behind it, whether or not anyone has "... stat[ed] precisely what the assumptions are." Well, someone may come up with an assumption some say, so we may as well get our objections in early.

This book is distinctly non-mathematical. I don't know all that much, but I do know to ask what background probability model is used to decide whether a similarity or difference matters. That was never mentioned explicitly, but was silently buried in half-page descriptions of jack-knifing and boot-strapping.

It's non-mathematical content is very valuable, though. Its glossary gives clear descriptions of subtly different terms. The chapter on nomenclature, the formal process of naming, was a real discovery for me. I had no idea that the rules were so elaborate.

Perhaps it's the nature of the field, but I was surprised at how few recent references appeared at the end of most chapters. I appreciate the classic papers, back to the 1900s. The 1970s were well represented. References from the 1990s, however, were startling when they did appear, since there were so very few of them. Considering the book's 2000 copyright date, the source material seemed older than I would have expected.

This won't give you any insight into algorithms or mathematical techniques, which disappointed me initially. Once I settled into the biological and historical insight that the book does give, though, I found it very enjoyable.

Rating:
Summary: Great as a textbook for college students
Review: This book makes a great revision on the development of some of the ideas and methods currently used in cladistics. Even though it is not a deep revision it succintly addresses the major ideas in which the theory has been developed. The strongest point that this book makes is the role of philosophy of science in development of cladistic methods (Chapter 3). Schuh scores again in Chapter 6, by presenting the common methods in quantitative cladistics, and by presenting a thoroughly discussion about long branch attraction (a potential nightmare for molecular biologists). It is a little bit too synthetic in presenting the applications of cladistic analyses. It also is biased to applications in biogeography and it presents Brooks Parsimony Analysis (BPA) and Assumptions 0, 1, and 2 as separate things when the aforemention assumptions must be used as part of BPA.
In short it is a great summary of the development of concepts and methods in cladistics during the last 40 years, for such a reason it is a great tool for undergraduate students that my overcome that gap in their knowledge.