Lode's new classification

[DaveW]

Joël Lodé has now published a .pdf on his website of the index of names and synonyms for his forthcoming books classification based on DNA plus morphology:-

http://cactus-aventures.com/Taxonomy_of ... _V3-2-.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[adetheproducer]

Quite a lot of clumping at species level but also a lot of splitting of genre quite interesting I will need to study it further might write out the bold as sinlge list just to make a bit more clear. I wonder how much is genetics and how much it morphology? Good read cheers dave with the ever informative news.

[DaveW]

Certainly not the easiest synonymy to follow, hopefully the books will make the synonymy clearer.

[A. Dean Stock]

There are so many errors in it in the two genera I looked at (Echinocereus and Opuntia) that it appears to be of little use other than an alphabetical list of names from the literature.
Dean

[DaveW]

Yes, he certainly needs to explain his conclusions in the books. But then the New Cactus Lexicon (NCL) lumped many genera and species which never should have been placed together. Anderson's classification was just a precursor to the NCL, being equally illogically lumped in places and based on early IOS working committee's that eventually produced the NCL classification.

I agree with the separation of Rebutia and Alyostera which DNA Sequencing has indicated spring from two different lines, also the submerging of Sulcorebutia into Weingartia is a sensible step rather than lumping them all into Rebutia.

I also agree with resurrecting Roy Mottram's Rimocactus for Eriosyce laui which does not sit happily in Eriosyce sensu Katterman and is better parked in a monotypic genus until it's real affinities are sorted out. Pity Lode did not retain Digitostigma for Astrophytum caput-medusae, since that does not sit well in Astrophytum and may have been an inter generic hybrid in the distant past.

As to Neoporteria rather than Eriosyce, he has virtually gone back to the Donald & Rowley 1966 "Reunion of Neoporteria" which excluded Eriosyce sensu stricto. A friend of mine tells me Adriana Hoffmann, the Chilean botanist, is also doubtful Eriosyce sensu stricto has any real relationship with the other genera Fred Kattermann included in his Eriosyce. However Lode differs from Donald & Rowley in keeping Islaya as a separate genus.

I guess in future sensible collectors will take the best bits from both the Lode and Hunt NCL classifications and derive a sensible working one of their own, since so far the present classifiers don't seem to be able to come up with a universally acceptable one. Classification of the Cactaceae still seems to be a work very much in progress and probably still will be for decades to come. No doubt in a few years time we will have yet another new classification for the family, dismantling both the NCL and Lode classifications.

[A. Dean Stock]

The attempts at a workable taxonomy for all cacti like this one are doomed to early death because many genera are still having new species described as in Echinocereus and Opuntia and much of the taxonomy of even North American Opuntia is at the "best guess" level. Some groups of western North American Opuntia such as the so-called "Polyacantha Complex" suffer from treatments like those of Parfitt (FNA) that border on "idiotic". Many of the "species" of Opuntia in Texas and the mid-west are various levels of hybrids with Opuntia macrorhiza and so it goes. It will be some time and will require much better DNA cladistics work than has yet emerged along with morphology and cytogenetics to finally arrive at any sense of understanding of these groups. Many allopolyploids add to the mess and will require whole genome DNA hybridization comparisons (Gish) to finally understand ancestral combinations.
Dean

[DaveW]

Evidently he has now published a new version of the synonymy, so it's evidently a work in progress and he is picking up mistakes of earlier versions.

There is a contact email here for anybody who wants to comment to him on it:-

http://cactus-aventures.com/body_contactENG.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

However as the books are due out April/May I would have thought most things should have been finalised now. I believe the books deal with species published up to around 2013/14. The problem with all printed material, unlike websites, is everything is frozen in time and cannot be updated except by another volume once it has gone to press, therefore all books and journals are out of date as soon as they are printed. The idea was keep updating the New Cactus Lexicon with further volumes, but these schemes never seem to happen since we only got a few updates in the cheap cut down illustrations volume, not a proper updated companion volume to the NCL.

[DaveW]

I passed on some errors in Joel Lode's classification for Kattermann's Eriosyce from Roger Ferryman and myself and received the following email. I am sure he would be glad to receive details of any errors you may find too:-

"Dear David,

Please excuse my bad English, even this was also an obstacle to produce my books. But by doing nothing, nothing happens!

Thank you for your mail, I appreciate your communication and give my thanks also to Roger for his help: we are all humans and thanks to this, we can correct our errors. Surely, people involved in a genus with their species will find more errors, and this is fine if we can correct them as I am doing now and if everybody agrees with them (which is not always the case), I will be happy to accept any help from the experts!

One thing is the index of names and synonyms, and another thing is the book, mainly focused on genera: in fact there is no description of the species, only attempted lists.

While it seems going back to Backebergian era, this is only a modern approach of DNA molecular works and their results, a powerful tool when added to the morphology alone which is source of errors as we do with the convergence of forms. The surprise was for me to know that the genetists were mostly young and not especially Backebergian. So, I intended to follow them and see what they really found behind their analyses and cladograms.

We know now that ev0lution creates difference, not the contrary. Some might not like the results, but in cacti, DNA has been ignored during more than 20 years, saying that it was not accurate, being a "fundamentalist approach", resolution too scarce, wait and see etc. etc. So many people involved, from so many different countries, repeating the investigation with at each time a better resolution and more nuclear markers might not all wrong at the same time...

It was time to do something and I intended, because the "wait and see" could be long and sterile. Maybe people was comfortable with the NCL taxonomy, maybe they did not want to change; maybe they wished to wait 10 or 20 more years to get a better result. A better result. Since the first discovery of cacti, we are trying to get a better result in Taxonomy. Sometimes, you have to jump and see what's happening.

Nature doesn't create a classification, we just need a classification to better understand Nature. If the books before mine were not with errors, errata or mistakes, I am glad to know that! I feel that it is always easier to find the errors of others than those of ourselves.

Anyway, while I would have preferred experts to do this instead of me, I feel happy to have produced the book, I hope it may help in a somewhat "stabilization" of the taxonomy a little bit!

And this is just the beginning: who has read the book already? It will be mostly distributed in May, as there is a lot of subscribers from all over the world that expected it and it is a long job to prepare, verify and send the parcels, each 7kgs100! Thank you for patience!

Joël Lodé"

[A. Dean Stock]

All well and good but my concern is why do the book to begin with. I make that comment on the basis of his stated desire to follow the young DNA workers producing cladograms. I'm an experienced molecular geneticist and I know for certain that these initial DNA studies, while revealing, are not yet the "standard" to follow. To get to that point, many more genes must be included and these cannot all be from either chloroplast , mitochondria, or nuclear but a good mixture. The people at Kew jumped into changing all Orchid taxonomy on the basis of early DNA work and really made a complete mess of it. We are at the beginning of this work not the middle or the end and many of the cladograms now proposed will be greatly changed with more data. They are also only "accurate" to the extent that the original DNA material has been taken from an accurately identified plant. That often is not the case. The field work and morphological work must come first not the other way around. To publish a book following these early studies is somewhat premature. It will certainly do no harm and will possibly aid some, not trained in the field, to appreciate the direction we are going in, but it will be instantly out of date and not very accurate to begin with. In many groups, for instance the one I'm working on, the "Opuntia polyacantha Complex" the relevant DNA work is not even started and the morphological work still lacking, hence Lode's book will only contain the old and very inaccurate data. The same is true for Echinocereus and many other genera. As for submitting information on possible errors in the work to Lode, that is his job not ours!!! I doubt that this new book will add anything that is not presently available in print but I'm ready to be surprised!!!
Dean

[adetheproducer]

I suppose it us a big ask gene mappings that many species also we dont really know as much about dna as the world would think add to that that some plants can edit they're own gene genetics might never answer the questions we want it to.

[Robb]

I tried to have a look at the PDF because I was interested to see if Lobivia was split from Echinopsis, and to see what adjustments had been made to Turbinicarpus. But when I clicked the link it just said "Error Not Found." Is there any way I could view it?

[phil_SK]

It's the link at the bottom of the homepage, in a cream box http://cactus-aventures.com/pageweb_ENG.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Puzzlingly, his take on Lobivia is at odds with the findings of the main DNA study http://www.amjbot.org/content/99/8/1335.full.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; and sticks to a big white flowers Echinopsis/ small coloured flowers Lobivia that we've known since Britton&Rose.

[Robb]

Thanks Phil_SK, that link seemed to work. It's interesting to note that while Rapicactus has been split from Turbinicarpus due to it's genetic differences, species like Turbinicarpus pseudomacrochele which are rather different from most Turbinicarpus sp are not.

[DaveW]

Received the following in an email from Joel Lode today:-

"Sorry if the book is not still appearing, I received the pallets yesterday, I am going on lecture in Cheste, Spain where I will present the books, then in France, in Monaco and I am afraid that the mailing between the three languages and the 34 countries where the books have to be sent is somewhat a long task and will be done throughout May and possibly June."

[DaveW]

Whether we agree with all the Lode classification or not he has surprisingly visited many habitats on a bike and he established a world record by crossing Death Valley on bicycle in August, 1976!

http://cactus-aventures.com/body_joellodeENG.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;