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Reply to Retallack (2013): Ediacaran characters

Reply to Retallack (2013): Ediacaran characters How should we use characters to place fossil organisms with their closest living relatives? The last 40 years have favored a solution that uses plesiomorphic and apomorphic characters and the cladistic methodology. This can be difficult for fossil taxa as the characters that define groups must be unique and present in the group's last common ancestor, and agreeing what these are can be a challenge. Nonetheless, the cladistic approach has had great success in unravelling the evolutionary relationships and affinities of other enigmatic fossils, such as those of the Burgess Shale. However, Retallack ( , ) instead argues for a phenetic approach that identifies affinity based on overall similarity, and his conclusions are erroneous as a result. Retallack ( ) indeed seems to be aware of this problem referring to phenetics as “ picture matching ” and stating that he is not engaged in such a process. However, below we demonstrate how Retallack ( ) does use a phenetic approach and how this has led him to misunderstand the criticisms of Antcliffe and Hancy ( ) and restate all the same errors. None of the characters listed in Retallack ( ) or his previous publications convincingly identify any http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Evolution and Development Wiley

Reply to Retallack (2013): Ediacaran characters

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References (18)

Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
ISSN
1520-541X
eISSN
1525-142X
DOI
10.1111/ede.12048
pmid
24261440
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

How should we use characters to place fossil organisms with their closest living relatives? The last 40 years have favored a solution that uses plesiomorphic and apomorphic characters and the cladistic methodology. This can be difficult for fossil taxa as the characters that define groups must be unique and present in the group's last common ancestor, and agreeing what these are can be a challenge. Nonetheless, the cladistic approach has had great success in unravelling the evolutionary relationships and affinities of other enigmatic fossils, such as those of the Burgess Shale. However, Retallack ( , ) instead argues for a phenetic approach that identifies affinity based on overall similarity, and his conclusions are erroneous as a result. Retallack ( ) indeed seems to be aware of this problem referring to phenetics as “ picture matching ” and stating that he is not engaged in such a process. However, below we demonstrate how Retallack ( ) does use a phenetic approach and how this has led him to misunderstand the criticisms of Antcliffe and Hancy ( ) and restate all the same errors. None of the characters listed in Retallack ( ) or his previous publications convincingly identify any

Journal

Evolution and Development – Wiley

Published: Nov 1, 2013

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