Hennig, Emil Hans Willi (The Father of Cladism)
Alessandro Minelli, University of Padova, Padova, Italy
Published online: January 2014
DOI: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0025061
Abstract
Emil Hans Willi Hennig was a German systematist and entomologist. As a specialist in Diptera, he published a fundamental treatise
on dipteran larvae and taxonomic monographs on several families. Hennig, however, is best known for his theoretical and methodological
contributions to biological systematics. Indeed, he is considered the founder of phylogenetic systematics, or cladistics.
Hennig articulated a method by which the evolutionary relationships of organisms (phylogeny) can be reconstructed and this
reconstruction is subsequently turned into a hierarchical classification. This method contrasted with the mainstream approach
to biological systematics adopted till the 1960s, but eventually succeeded to replace it, although in a modified version in
respect to Hennig's original outline. Hennig's phylogenetic systematics has heavily impacted other biological disciplines,
especially biogeography.
Keywords: cladistics; classification; phylogeny; species; tree of life
References
Darwin
CR
(1872)
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,
6th edn.
London: Murray.
Farris
JS
(1972)
Estimating phylogenetic trees from distance matrices.
American Naturalist
106(951):
645–668.
Farris
JS
(1988)
Hennig86, version 1.5 manual/software and MSDOS program.
Port Jefferson Station, New York: Distributed by the Author.
Farris
JS
,
Kluge
AG
and
Eckardt
MJ
(1970)
A numerical approach to phylogenetic systematics.
Systematic Zoology
19(2):
172–189.
Felsenstein
J
(1973)
Maximum likelihood and minimum‐steps methods for estimating evolutionary trees from data on discrete characters.
Systematic Zoology
22(3):
240–249.
Felsenstein
J
(1981)
Evolutionary trees from DNA sequences: a maximum likelihood approach.
Journal of Molecular Evolution
17(6):
368–376.
Forey
PL
,
Humphries
CJ
,
Kitching
IL
et al.
(1992)
Cladistics: A Practical Course in Systematics.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ghiselin
MT
(1966)
On psychologism in the logic of taxonomic controversies.
Systematic Zoology
15(3):
207–215.
Ghiselin
MT
(1974)
A radical solution to the species problem.
Systematic Zoology
23(4):
536–544.
Hennig
W
(1948–1952).
Die Larvenformen derDipteren: eine Übersicht über die bisher bekannten Jungendstadien der zweiflügeligen Insekten.
Berlin: Akademie‐Verlag.
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
(1966a)
Phylogenetic Systematics.
Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
Hennig
W
(1966b)
The Diptera fauna of New Zealand as a problem in systematics and zoogeography.
Pacific Insects Monographs
9:
1–81.
Hennig
W
(1969)
Die Stammesgeschichte der Insekten.
Frankfurt am Main: Kramer.
Huelsenbeck
JP
and
Ronquist
F
(2001)
MrBayes: Bayesian inference of phylogenetic trees.
Bioinformatics
17(8):
754–755.
Hull
DL
(1976)
Are species really individuals?
Systematic Zoology
25(2):
174–191.
Mayr
E
(1974)
Cladistic analysis or cladistic classification?
Zeitschrift für zoologische Systematik und Evolutionsforschung
12(2):
94–128.
Rosa
D
(1918)
Ologenesi, nuova teoria dell'evoluzione e della distribuzione geografica dei viventi.
Firenze: Bemporad.
Watrous
LE
and
Wheeler
QD
(1981)
The out‐group comparison method of character analysis.
Systematic Zoology
30(1):
1–11.
Wiley
EO
(1981)
Phylogenetics: The Theory and Practice of Phylogenetic Systematics.
New York: Wiley.
Yang
Z
and
Rannala
B
(1997)
Bayesian phylogenetic inference using DNA sequences: a Markov chain Monte Carlo method.
Molecular Biology and Evolution
14(7):
717–724.
Further Reading
Andersen
NM
(2001)
The impact of W. Hennig's ‘phylogenetic systematic’ on contemporary entomology.
European Journal of Entomology
98(2):
133–150.
Dupuis
C
(1984)
Willi Hennig's impact on taxonomic thought.
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics
15:
1–25.
Hennig
W
(1975)
‘Cladistic analysis or cladistic classification?’: a reply to Ernst Mayr.
Systematic Zoology
25(2):
244–256.
Kavanaugh
DH
(1972)
Hennig's principles and methods of phylogenetic systematics.
Biologist
54:
115–127.
Schmitt
M
(2013)
From Taxonomy to Phylogenetics. Life and work of Willi Hennig.
Leiden‐Boston: Brill.