Re: Hierarchal vs Non-Hierarchal Interfaces to Biological Taxonomy

From: paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac>
Date: Sat, 23 Dec 2006 14:34:45 GMT
Message-ID: <98bjh.513869$5R2.409647@pd7urf3no>

Paul wrote:
>
> Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>
>

>>Here's an even better one: Suppose a retrovirus comes along that conveys 
>>some fitness advantage so that it becomes ubiquitous among a species: 
>>ducks for instance. Suppose as well that the virus crosses over from the 
>>domesticated duck population into pigs and humans where it too becomes 
>>ubiquitous.

>
>
>
> This is a well known problem in evolutionary biology. The thing to do
> is to take the set of all genes + morphological and fossil data and
> combine them all into a synthesis about the animal/species in
> question.
>
> i.e. if one takes a single gene sequence from a bacterium, it doesn't
> tell a biologist a lot about that bacterium's evolution. The whole
> genome, wall structure, operon order, habitat, G/C content plus many
> other criteria allow us to group a given organism with others. There
> are too many examples of gene transfer in nature for one bit of DNA to
> be a definitive reference.
>
> I my degree thesis, I was the first person on earth to discover a gene
> transfer event from the archea to the eubacteria - no ticker tape
> parade, but I was proud of myself.
>
>
>
> Paul...
>
>
>

Can't resist jumping in, even though I know nothing of the topic - it seems that there are many relations, apparently many of them are unexplored so far.

p Received on Sat Dec 23 2006 - 08:34:45 CST