Subject: Referring to members of higher taxa

From: [email-masked] (James J. Worrall)
Date: 6 Apr 1995 14:59:09 GMT

I would be grateful for opinions from mycologists, especially
systematists, on acceptable ways to refer to members of
certain higher taxa.  For instance, if we believe in a class
Ascomycetes, most of us get in the habit of using sentences
like: "Ascomycetes produce asci," as if the class were a plural
reference to all members, rather than saying,  "Members of the
Ascomycetes produce asci."

If we believe instead that the group should be recognized at the
division level, we have a choice of:
"Ascomycota produce asci," which sounds bad;
"Members of the Ascomycota produce asci,"
"Ascomycetes produce asci," using a lower-case informal term; or
"Ascomycotans produce asci," as Kendrick did in his book.

None of these seem completely satisfactory.  Using the term
"ascomycetes" to refer to members of the division Ascomycota
may be a bad habit and is certainly confusing to students.

Any opinions out there?  Thanks.

Jim Worrall

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From: [email-masked] (David H. Griffin)
Date: 10 Apr 1995 19:07:47 GMT

The root -mycetes comes from the Greek word mykes (or myces), depending 
on how you want to transliterate the third letter of the alphabet, kappa. 
"Myces" is the singular nominative form and "mycetes" is the plural 
nominative form. Therefore making a pseudosingular form by dropping the 
final s is clearly an anglicisation of the word, and incorrect by the 
rules of grammar for the formal taxonomic name. When referring to one 
fungus as a member of a group, it would be better to say, for example, 
"Neurospora is a member of the Ascomycetes." The statement, "Neurospora 
is an Ascomycetes," has wrong number relationships. To drop the s, as in 
ascomycete, makes this Greek word incorrect as such, and should only be 
used informally, not as the name of a taxon. Thus, "Neurospora is an 
ascomycete." But then your reader cannot be sure if you mean to accept 
Ascomycetes as a class, or that you are just making a descriptive statement.

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From: [email-masked] (Charles J. O'Kelly)
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 1995 18:23:49 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (James J. Worrall) writes:

>certain higher taxa.  

>For instance, if we believe in a class

my practice in formal writing is to use the latter form, usually something
like "Fungi that belong to the Xxx have ...".  classes do not have
asci :-).  however, in informal writing and lecturing, it is difficult to 
avoid the shortcut.  

>"Ascomycota produce asci," which sounds bad;
[etc.]
>may be a bad habit and is certainly confusing to students.

my opinion - the instructor is teaching two things here.  one is the formal
classification of fungi, the other is the way people in the real world,
or as close to real as academia gets :-), speak and write in the lab.

as far as I'm aware, folk in mycology use "ascomycetes" as the common name
for ascus-producing fungi, regardless of what formal classification is
recognized.  ditto "basidiomycetes", "diatoms", "euglenoids", "amoebae"
(even though this group is polyphyletic), etc.  it's bad luck that the
current common name for the ascomycete clade is identical to one of the
higher taxon names used to describe the clade, or one subset of it, but
if the student is to communicate with colleagues, the term(s) in real use
should be learned, in parallel with the more formal terms and complete with
all the inherent contradictions.  

maybe someone has a less ad-hoc solution?  

good luck.

charley o'kelly
mad protistologist
[email-masked]
[email-masked]