Book contents
- Cladistics
- The Systematics Association Special Volume Series
- Cladistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Carving Nature at Its Joints, or Why Birds Are Not Dinosaurs and Men Are Not Apes
- Part I The Interrelationships of Organisms
- Part II Systematics: Exposing Myths
- 3 Relationship Diagrams
- 4 Essentialism and Typology
- 5 Monothetic and Polythetic Taxa
- 6 Non-taxa or the Absence of –Phyly: Paraphyly and Aphyly
- Part III The Cladistic Programme
- Part IV How to Study Classification
- Part V Beyond Classification
- Afterword
- Index
- Systematics Association Special Volumes
- References
5 - Monothetic and Polythetic Taxa
from Part II - Systematics: Exposing Myths
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2020
Book contents
- Cladistics
- The Systematics Association Special Volume Series
- Cladistics
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Carving Nature at Its Joints, or Why Birds Are Not Dinosaurs and Men Are Not Apes
- Part I The Interrelationships of Organisms
- Part II Systematics: Exposing Myths
- 3 Relationship Diagrams
- 4 Essentialism and Typology
- 5 Monothetic and Polythetic Taxa
- 6 Non-taxa or the Absence of –Phyly: Paraphyly and Aphyly
- Part III The Cladistic Programme
- Part IV How to Study Classification
- Part V Beyond Classification
- Afterword
- Index
- Systematics Association Special Volumes
- References
Summary
How are taxa defined? How should they be defined? Should they be defined at all? In this chapter we discuss two approaches to the formation of groups, captured by the notions of polythetic and monothetic classes.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- CladisticsA Guide to Biological Classification, pp. 119 - 123Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
References
References
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Further Reading
Mavrodiev, EV. 2016. Dealing with propositions, not with the characters: the ability of three-taxon statement analysis to recognise groups based solely on ‘reversals’, under the maximum-likelihood criteria. Australian Systematic Botany 29: 119–125.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, DM. & Ebach, MC. 2017. What is intuitive taxonomic practice? Systematic Biology 66: 637–643.Google ScholarPubMed