FIGURE 4. Non-exhaustive series of examples of the outcome of tests of monophyly of a certain taxon. The upper row indicates the main analyses that indicate paraphyly of genus 2 (G2), based on the Maximum Parsimony optimality criterion and non-parametric bootstrapping. Clade stability for a reclassified genus 2 (marked with a black circle, including species 2, 3, and 4), rises with increasing clade support in the main analysis (upper series of trees). Clade stability for this reclassified taxon furthermore depends on the congruence with a second analysis method (here as example, Bayesian inference, middle series of trees) and with a second, largely independent set of characters (lower series of trees). Note that the trees do not represent different reanalyses of the same data; each set of trees (I–VI) is just an example of which kind of evidence a researcher could face when deciding on reclassifying genera 1 and 2.

Published as part of Vences, Miguel, Guayasamin, Juan M., Miralles, Aurélien & Riva, Ignacio De La, 2013, To name or not to name: Criteria to promote economy of change in Linnaean classification schemes, pp. 201-244 in Zootaxa 3636 (2) on page 216, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3636.2.1, http://zenodo.org/record/5262429