"Tree is not a distinct clade" is the version of the title that isn't clickbait horseshit.
There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
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Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#22> Imagine if actually there were amphibian birds and mammal birds and insect birds flying all around Bats (mammal) Mosquitoes (amphibian) Any number of flying insects. My least favourite is a two inch long flying cockroach that I encountered on a visit to Tāmaki Makaurau
Mosquitoes are insects too. The closest to a flying amphibian might be a flying frog [1]?
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#23Don't scientists use phenotypical similarity to deduce ancestry when it comes to fossil remains?
If phenotypical similarit is so unreliable, what are the implications?
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#24When you think about it, it would actually be crazier if our common words matched exactly with biological evolution.
Words for categories typically aren't defined willy-nilly. The category "tree" comprises objects that share certain traits. The article makes the point that many species that are distantly-related share those traits, while some more closely-related species don't. I find that surprising.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#25I don't get the premise of the article. A tree is just a growth shape of a plant (plants are quite flexible regarding growth shapes, and often adapt to the environment), and a category that our minds place a plant species into. And its clearly an ancient ability common to all vascular plants to develop woody tissues. So why would we expect the tendency of a plant to become a tree to depend on its position in the phyl…
> I thought they wanted to show that the phylogenetic tree is not really a tree!
Well, it isn't. That wouldn't be news. A node in the phylogenetic tree can easily have multiple parents; it's a DAG, not a tree.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#26I’ve become increasingly interested in what I think would be called “computational botany” if it were to be fleshed out. In looking at this and articles like it, and speaking with both trained and amateur botanists, a common thread is that the appearance of a plant has become increasingly detached from its scientific classification. A frequent refrain in nature hikes I’ve been a part of goes along the lines of: “this…
The phylogenetic tree of life is organized not on the characteristics, but on the evolutionary origin of species. Species are in a specific branch of that tree if they share a common ancestor species with the whole branch. Shared characteristica were a good proxy for ancestry back when the mechanism behind inheritance of genes was not discovered yet. Of course, the concept of a species is a bit fuzzy (even the possib…
I understand how and why they have the naming system they do, I just am claiming that it’s become less and less helpful for amateur identification in favor of what scientists consider useful. I propose an alternative naming convention based only on the expressed characteristics as discoverable by the human eye rather than whatever DNA happens to be in the plant and how that may or may not relate to whatever DNA happens to be in other plants. Basically just demoting the value of DNA in favor of things you can actually see. This clearly wouldn’t replace the existing classifications, merely provide an alternative for folks looking for more explainable names.
Just like how a computer scientist might classify computer programs by instruction set, frameworks, libraries, etc. (things that show up clearly in the machine code but cannot be easily observed from the surface); but a layperson would just use UI and available features (things that are nearly indecipherable from the machine code but immediately obvious on cursory glance)
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#27A fern is not a tree. Hmm... What about a Tree Fern?
> “woody plants”, like lianas (thick woody vines) There are plants that start out as parasitic vines (parasitic? Epithetic? I am not sure what words to use...) that grow, as a vine, up a tree. Kill the tree, then stand as a tree from then on. https://live.staticflickr.com/5066/5645437671_f04c556157_b.j...
Strangler figs are like that, except I believe they grow down the tree, not up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangler_fig
It's hard to grow up a tree because the tree blocks the sunlight.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#28A fern is not a tree. Hmm... What about a Tree Fern?
> “woody plants”, like lianas (thick woody vines) There are plants that start out as parasitic vines (parasitic? Epithetic? I am not sure what words to use...) that grow, as a vine, up a tree. Kill the tree, then stand as a tree from then on. https://live.staticflickr.com/5066/5645437671_f04c556157_b.j...
I've seen Poison Ivy do this, at Cleburne State Park (TX), Cedar Lake.
Nestled among a beautiful bunch of cedar trees is a nice spot for a picnic. You notice that one tree stands out with broad leaves, but it doesn't look like an oak. You then notice the very distinct cedar bark. It was wild.
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#29I don't get the premise of the article. A tree is just a growth shape of a plant (plants are quite flexible regarding growth shapes, and often adapt to the environment), and a category that our minds place a plant species into. And its clearly an ancient ability common to all vascular plants to develop woody tissues. So why would we expect the tendency of a plant to become a tree to depend on its position in the phyl…
In addition to the sibling comments, I'd point out that the article is sort of an extended riff on the phrase, "There is no such thing as a fish," which was a sloppy QI paraphrase [0][1] of a principle elucidated by the 20th century paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, and later became the title of QI's well-known podcast [2]. And of course, fish do exist, just not in the simplistic way that many of us were taught as children, that they are one of five genetically discrete, self-contained, non-overlapping taxonomic classes: Fish, Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals.
The author is arguing that if you are going to say that about fish, you can say it about trees, fruit, and plenty of other things. That may be true, but unlike with fish, I don't ever recall being given the impression that trees and fruit were genetically discrete self-contained scientific categories. Fruit just seemed like something that some plants have, without any sense that fruity plants were necessarily more closely related than non-fruity plants. I mean, "biped" is also a category but nobody ever claimed that birds and humans are genetically discrete from the other four, six, eight, etc. legged animals. Still, it's a fun and interesting conversation, even though the author may have been forcing the fish analogy a bit.
[0] QI ("Quite Interesting") is a long-running British trivia/humor related game show
Re: There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)
#30When you think about it, it would actually be crazier if our common words matched exactly with biological evolution.
This is one of the cool things about math, there are a lot of aspects of math which stem from thinking, "well what if I took a square root of negative one?" or "what if geometry worked this way?" and then someone does the thought exercise and fleshes it out into something interesting. And then there just happen to be aspects of reality that end up being very nicely described by these what if questions
> there are a lot of aspects of math which stem from thinking, "well what if I took a square root of negative one?"
I don't think that's what imaginary numbers stem from. If I recall, they came from the much more specific question of "what if I apply the formula for roots of a cubic polynomial, even when that formula produces some nonsensical intermediate values that end up canceling each other out?".
It's less about "what if we do this?" and more about "we have this method, and it seems to work even in cases where it's not obvious that it should work".