Species Concepts
As most of our blog readers also read the Quarterly Review of Biology, it seems almost redundant to bring this up. However, EG forwarded me this PDF. Paul Michael Agapow and colleagues recently published a paper on species concepts. The abstract reads: Species are defined using a variety of different operational techniques. While discussion of the
various methodologies has previously been restricted mostly to taxonomists, the demarcation of species
is also crucial for conservation biology. Unfortunately, different methods of diagnosing species can
arrive at different entities. Most prominently, it is widely thought that use of a phylogenetic species
concept may lead to recognition of a far greater number of much less inclusive units. As a result,
studies of the same group of organisms can produce not only different species identities but also different
species range and number of individuals. To assess the impact of different definitions on conservation
issues, we collected instances from the literature where a group of organisms was categorized both under
phylogenetic and nonphylogenetic concepts. Our results show a marked difference, with surveys based
on a phylogenetic species concept showing more species (48%) and an associated decrease in population
size and range. We discuss the serious consequences of this trend for conservation, including an
apparent change in the number of endangered species, potential political fallout, and the difficulty of
deciding what should be conserved.

I have two thoughts on this.

Thought #1. If we classify every individual as a species, then every death event is an extinction! Unfortunately, every birth event is a speciation.

Thought #2. If we classify every individual as part of one species, then we have achieved our overarching goal of one species. Volunteers may become complacent, and we may fall short of our one genotype goal.

I think our volunteer systematists need to keep working on the question of species concepts and bring forth something usable for our purposes.

- nostradamusfunkadelic, 1:10 PM | |