La "rivoluzione cladistica" in tassonomia, nuovi strumenti ed implicazioni per gli ecologi.

The aim of the paper is to synthesize the implications of the "cladistic revolution" in a ecological context. The major contribution of cladistic philosophy concerns rank elimination. Rank choice is subjective, and it is widely proved that ranks from different taxa are not comparable. Moreover, recent researches have emphasized the importance of sympatric speciation in marine environment, up to now largely neglected, which may result in genera disproportionately represented in a given biogeographical area. Another deficiency of the Linnean system lies in its well known instability, for these reasons cladists have replaced Linnean nomenclature with phylo-code wher a taxon's name is maintained stable since it is referred to its cladistic relationships and not to any given rank. The new approaches deeply influence the possible use of' taxonomic surrogates within ecological researches.