Abstract
The concept that renders morphology a tool for phylogeny reconstruction is homology. The concept of homology is rooted in pre-evolutionary idealistic morphology. The claim that the goal of idealistic morphology was the seriability of form may sound paradoxical given that this discipline proceeded within a framework of strictly delimited types. But the types only demarcate where seriability starts and where it comes to an end. Carl Gegenbaur’s (Grundzüge der vergleichenden Anatomie, Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, 1859) was recognized as a milestone in idealistic morphology. A comparison with the second edition of 1870 illustrates Gegenbaur’s turn to evolutionary morphology. The methodology remained the same–seriability of form–but the series was no longer merely descriptive or conceptual but now a historical, evolutionary one. Gegenbaur emphasized that seriability of form was possible not only between species of the same type, but also between parts (organs) of organisms of the same type. Pursuing this project, he found that different parts of organisms evolve at different rates, resulting in an incongruence between the series of parts (organs) relative to the series of species under comparison. This incongrence was called chevauchement des spécialisations by Louis Dollo, Spezialisationskreuzungen by Othenio Abel, and heterobathmy of characters by Armen Takhtajan. Willi Hennig, the founder of modern methods in phylogenetic systematics, discovered that the heterobathmy of characters was a precondition for the establishment of the phylogenetic relationships based on shared derived characters. The result was a replacement of the search for ancestors by a search for relative degrees of phylogenetic relationships (sister-group relationships).
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abel, O. 1913. Neuere Wege phylogenetischer Forschung. Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Aerzte 85: 116–124.
Abel, O. 1929. Paläobiologie und Stammesgeschichte. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
Appel, T.A. 1987. The Cuvier—Geoffroy Debate. French Biology in the Decades Before Darwin. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Baer, C. E. v. 1828. Ueber Entwickelungsgeschichte der Thiere. Beobachtung und Reflexion, Theil I. Königsberg: Gebr. Bornträger.
Beatty, J. 1982. Classes and Cladists. Systematic Zoology 31: 25–34.
Bronn, H.G. 1858. Morphologische Studien über die Gestaltungs-Gesetze der Naturkörper überhaupt und der organischen insbesondere. Leipzig: G. F. Winter’sche Verlagshandlung.
Bronn, H.G. 1860. Charles Darwin, über die Entstehung der Arten im Thier- und Pflanzen-Reich durch natürliche Züchtung, oder Erhaltung der vervollkommneten Rassen im Kampfe um’s Daseyn. Stuttgart: E. Schweizerbartsche Verlagsbuchhandlung.
Carroll, R.L. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. New York: W. H. Freeman.
Cole, F.J. 1949. A History of Comparative Anatomy. From Aristotle to the Eighteenth Century. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Coleman, W. 1976. Morphology Between Type Concept and Descent Theory. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 31: 149–175.
Cuvier, G. 1817. Le Règne Animal distribué d‘après son organisation, pour servir de base a l’histoire naturelle des animaux et d’introduction a l’anatomie comparée. Paris: Deterville.
Darwin, C. 1859. On the Origin of Species. London: John Murray.
de Beer, G.R. 1954. Archaeopteryx and Evolution. Advancement of Science, London 11: 160–170.
Dollo, L. 1895. Sur la phylogénie des dipneustes. Bulletin de la Société Belge de Géologie, de Paléontologie, et d’Hydrologie 9: 79–128.
Gegenbaur, C. 1859. Grundzüge der vergleichenden Anatomie. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
Gegenbaur, C. 1870a. Grundzüge der vergleichenden Anatomie. Zweite, umgearbeitete Auflage. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
Gegenbaur, C. 1870b. Ueber das Skelet der Gliedmassen der Wirbelthiere im Allgemeinen und der Hintergliedmassen der Selachier insbesondere. Jenaische Zeitschrift für Medizin und Naturwissenschaft 5: 397–447.
Gegenbaur, C. 1876. Die Stellung und Bedeutung der Morphologie. Morphologisches Jahrbuch. Eine Zeitschrift für Anatomie und Entwickelungsgeschichte 1: 1–19.
Gegenbaur, C. 1898. Vergleichende Anatomie der Wirbelthiere, mit Berücksichtigung der Wirbellosen. Erster Band. Einleitung, Integument, Skeletsystem, Muskelsystem, Nervensystem und Sinnesorgane. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann.
Haeckel, E. 1864. Über die Entwickelungstheorie Darwins. Amtlicher Bericht über die Versammlung Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte 38: 17–30.
Haeckel, E. 1866. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, vol. 2. Berlin: Georg Reimer.
Hennig, W. 1950. Grundzüge einer Theorie der Phylogenetischen Systematik. Berlin: Deutscher Zentralverlag.
Hennig, W. 1965. Phylogenetic Systematics. Annual Review of Entomology 10: 97–116.
Hennig, W. 1966. Phylogenetic Systematics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Hull, D.L. 1988. Science as a Process. An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kuhn-Schnyder, E.S., and H. Rieber. 1984. Ziele und Grenzen der Paläontologie. Die Naturwissenschaften 71: 199–205.
Levit, G.S., and U. Hoßfeld. 2006. The Forgotten “Old-Darwinian” Synthesis: The Evolutionary Theory of Ludwig H. Plate (1862–1937). NTM: International Journal of History & Ethics of Natural Sciences Technology & Medicine 14: 9–25.
Lorenzen, S. 1994. Phylogenetische Systematik gestern, heute und morgen. Biologie in unserer Zeit 24: 200–206.
Meyer-Abich, A. 1934. Die Axiome der Biologie. Nova Acta Leopoldina N.F 1: 474–551.
Naef, A. 1926. Zur Diskussion des Homologiebegriffes. Biologisches Zentralblatt 46: 187–190.
Nelson, G. 2004. Cladistics: Its Arrested Development. In Milestones in Systematics, ed. D.M. Williams and P.L. Forey, 127–147. Boca Raton: CRC Press.
Nyhart, L.K. 1995. Biology Takes Form. Animal Morphology and the German Universities, 1800–1900. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Nyhart, L.K. 2003. The Importance of the “Gegenbaur School” for German Morphology. Theory in Bioscience 122: 162–173.
Owen, R. 1843. Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons, from Notes taken by William White Cooper, M.R.C.S., and Revised by Professor Owen. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.
Owen, R. 1855. Principes d’ostéologie comparée, ou recherches sur l’archétype et les homologies du squelette vertébré. Paris: J.-B. Baillière.
Owen, R. 1866. On the Anatomy of Vertebrates. Vol. I. Fishes and Reptiles. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Patterson, C. 1982. Morphological Characters and Homology. In Problems of Phylogenetic Reconstruction, ed. K.A. Joysey and A.E. Friday, 21–74. London: Academic Press.
Peyer, B. 1950. Goethes Wirbeltheorie des Schädels. Neujahrsblatt der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Zürich. 152. Stück. Zürich: Gebr. Fretz.
Remane, A. 1952. Die Grundlagen des Natürlichen Systems, der Vergeichenden Anatomie, und der Phylogenetik. Theoretische Morphologie und Systematik. Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft.
Richards, R.J. 2002. The Romantic Conception of Life. Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Richards, R.J. 2008. The Tragic Sense of Life. Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rieppel, O. 2011a. Wilhelm Troll (1897–1978): Idealistic Morphology, Physics, and Phylogenetics. History and Philosophy of Life Sciences 33: 321–342.
Rieppel, O. 2011b. The Gegenbaur Transformation: A Paradigm Change in Comparative Biology. Systematics and Biodiversity 9: 177–190.
Rieppel, O. 2012. Adolf Naef (1883–1949), Systematic Morphology and Phylogenetics. Journal for Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research 50: 2–13.
Rieppel, O. 2013. Othenio Abel (1875–1946) and “The Phylogeny of the Parts”. Cladistics 29: 328–335.
Rieppel, O. 2016. Phylogenetic Systematics. Haeckel to Hennig. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
Rupke, N.A. 1994. Richard Owen. Victorian Naturalist. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Schaeffer, B., and M. Williams. 1977. Relationships of Fossil and Living Elasmobranchs. American Zoologist 17: 293–302.
Schmitt, M. 2014. Willi Hennig’s Part in the History of Systematics. In The Evolution of Phylogenetic Systematics, ed. A. Hamilton, 47–62. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Schmitt, M. 2016. Willi Hennig: A Shy Man Behind a Scientific Revolution. In The Future of Phylogenetic Systematics. The Legacy of Willi Hennig, ed. D. Williams, M. Schmitt, and Q. Wheeler, 21–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stevens, P.F. 1983. Report of Third Annual Willi Hennig Society Meeting. Systematic Zoology 32: 285–291.
Takhtajan, A. 1959. Die Evolution der Angiospermen. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
von Goethe, J.W. 1817. Zur Morphologie. Stuttgart: Cotta’sche Buchhandlung.
Wheeler, Q.D. 2008. Undisciplined Thinking: Morphology and Hennig’s Unfinished Revolution. Systematic Entomology 33: 2–7.
Williams, D., M. Schmitt, and Q. Wheeler. 2016. Introduction. In The Future of Phylogenetic Systematics. The Legacy of Willi Hennig, ed. D. Williams, M. Schmitt, and Q. Wheeler, 1–9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Xu, X., H. You, and F. Han. 2011. An Archaeopteryx-like Theropod from China and the Origin of Avialae. Nature 475: 465–470.
Zangerl, R., and G.R. Case. 1976. Obelodus aculeatus (Cope), an Anacanthous Shark from Pennsylvanian Black Shales of North America. Palaeontographica A 154: 107–157.
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank Marco Tamborini for the invitation to contribute to this volume, and for his constructive criticism of an earlier draft of this paper. Scott Gilbert and an anonymous reviewer likewise offered helpful comments that improved an earlier version of this paper.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rieppel, O. Morphology and Phylogeny. J Hist Biol 53, 217–230 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-020-09600-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10739-020-09600-x