NO. 3 BARNARD: THE PHOXOCEPHALIDAE 177 



THE PROBLEM OF THE SYSTEMATIST 

 IN RELATION TO PHENOTYPES, 

 HYBRIDIZATION AND ECOLOGY 



It is commonly the case that the more material a systematist 

 examines the less clearly distinct many closely related species seem. 

 Species cannot be defined on the basis of single holotypes because 

 each of them is a complex of alleles responding in different ways to 

 several environments. This is eminently characteristic of the species 

 in the genus Paraphoxus, members of which are monotonously plain 

 and similar, and so numerous and common as to be present, with 

 rare exception, in all samples collected on muddy bottoms from the 

 intertidal to 100 fathoms. 



In systematics there have been trends to "lumping" and trends to 

 "splitting", the latter being preferable from a nomenclatural viewpoint. 

 The "New Systematics" (Huxley 1940 and Mayr 1942)* is an 

 attempt to stimulate a realistic approach to speciation, by segregating 

 micro- and macropopulations of animals where genetic factors, isolation 



*The New Systematics is a fresh approach which answers those critics who 

 consider systematics a dead science and who consider systematists as little more 

 than file clerks. The refusal of a large body of biological scientists (especially 

 physiologists, both chemical and electronic) to recognize, support or encourage 

 the systematist has reduced the number of these scientists in many groups to 

 dangerously low levels. In one way, this anathema has brought considerable 

 benefits, for the postwar graduate, trained in other fields, who becomes a 

 working systematist, often is better and more broadly educated than are 

 narrowly specialized members in other fields. The systematist (especially in 

 marine biology) no longer writes a dissertation in systematics; he writes one 

 in physiology, genetics, embryology, ecology, or a combination of these fields; 

 thus, he often becomes better acquainted with general living systems than 

 do other graduates. 



The need for more systematists is only too evident to anyone who would 

 take time to peruse recent works such as Hartman (1955 and 1956) and Hart- 

 man and Barnard (1957) and see how many new or poorly known species of 

 animals have been collected in two small off-shore areas of California. 



One might also use the previous references as a base on which to compare 

 nearly all marine surveys of the last decade to see how they have failed, in some 

 cases conveniently, in others through sampling failures, to consider polychaete 

 and crustacean faunas. Dr. Hartman and her coworkers have found that 

 polychaetes comprise most of the biomass in many marine communities and 

 that polychaetes and crustaceans together comprise more than 75% of the 

 species in marine level bottoms. Surveys which fail to consider these animals 

 have little value to descriptive ecology and are misleading to experimental 

 ecologists, who, as a result, often work with animals of minor importance to 

 the dynamics of marine ecosystems. 



This state of affairs will continue until it is realized that systematists are 

 valuable basic research scientists and of practical value to ecology. 



