Macroevolutionary Systematics of Streptotrichaceae of the Bryophyta: And Application to Ecosystem Thermodynamic Stability

Biological systematics is the key to understanding and modeling the mechanisms of the present climate and biodiversity crisis. Genera are the basic dynamic units of ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems have many dissilient (radiative) genera. These each have a number of species or short lineages descendant from a core progenitor species. A new moss family, Streptotrichaceae, is carved from the larger Pottiaceae, in part, on the basis of heretofore ignored traits, and demonstrates a complex dissilient structure. Sequential Bayesian analysis provides a means of determining optimal estimation of order and direction of evolution in a lineage. The Streptotrichaceae is supported by 130 informational bits, which include postulated missing links. The 28 species of the family are supported individually by 113 bits in the range (2