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Over the last few chapters we have been exploring the relationship be-
tween evolutionary differentiation expressed in the speciation pattern
of clades and morphological differentiation. We saw in chapters 2 and 3
that these patterns are at least partly independent: it is possible for
a clade to be species rich without extensive differentiation, and it is
possible for a clade to be species poor, but with species markedly dif-
ferentiated from their (surviving) sister taxa. For that reason, species
richness is not invariably a good surrogate for morphological disparity.
Even so, there is an intimate relationship between phylogenetic and
morphological biodiversity. In part, that relationship is causal. We can
have speciation without differentiation, and that is one reason why a
clade can be species rich without being morphologically diverse. But
on the Futuyma-Eldredge model (Futuyma 1987; Eldredge 1995, 2003),
speciation is often necessary for morphological differentiation.
There is a second relationship as well. In 1.2, in discussing phenet-
ics, we pointed out that similarity and difference are undefined; we
must talk, instead, of similarity with respect to one or more character
states. In discussing morphospace, this issue reappears as the choice of
dimensions. A global morphospace is as undefined as the idea of overall