1. Richard Lane Barcoding and the practice of systematics

2. What are systematics and barcoding trying to do? Systematics Discover and delimit taxa Classify taxa based on testable relationships (phylogenetic) Provide guides to identification DNA barcoding Diagnostic Discover ‘new’ taxa Sequence data for systematic research

3. Relative importance of components Systematics Discover and delimit taxa Classify taxa based on testable relationships (phylogenetic) Provide guides to identification DNA barcoding Diagnostic Discover taxa Sequence data for systematic research

4. Concerns over DNA barcoding Barcoding : Will not distinguish all species (will not work) Diverts funds or attention Philosophically unsound (=pheneticism)

5. Will not distinguish all species Testable with empirical data: Plants not distinguishable by single CO1 seq Where many taxa sampled, >> 95% discriminated ‘new’ taxa indicated Species complexes not always discriminated

6. Diverts funds or attention [from more important elements of systematics] Funding: assumption of finite resources, competition analysable – qualitative methodology Relative importance: value-based

7. Philosophically unsound (=pheneticism) Only relevant if barcodes used for classification, not if used for identification

8. Questions?