No subject

[Walter Boeger]

Dear all,

What are we really talking about?  The working concept of species or the possibility of recognizing a "certain species" under a specific concept in the field?  In the second case, most appear to agree that the BSC is very hard to use, since it requires many information of distinct fields such as population genetics, population dynamics, geographic distribution, and so on.  I am a "worm" taxonomist and most of this information would hardly become available to me.  I am obligated to use the morphological species concept in recognizing species and this appear to be the case also for most of the taxonomy we do, even presently (plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, and so on - not recognizing them as "kingdom", necessarily).

The question is:  Because we do this (use the MSC) are we still in the stone age of taxonomy?  I don't think so.  The following "explanation" is actually the one I "use" to feel confortable with my morphological decisions on species identitiy.  If specimens look morphologically alike, isn't it correct to accept that the similarity is likely a consequence of the mechanisms/events/factors associated with the maintenance of a species identity (e.g. common ancestry and gene flow)?  Thus, I believe it makes sense to conclude that the use of the morphological concept in the practical recognition of species actually allows us to hypothesize on the evolutionary independence of the species (PSC).  Is this reasonable?  Further, the PSC does not require any a-priori assumption about the specific mechanisms that allow maintenance of the species' individuality.  That's a strenght, I believe.

As long as we understand that things "ain't so easy out there...."  ;-D

Walt
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Walter A. Boeger, Ph.D.
Grupo Integrado de Aqüicultura e
Departamento de Zoologia, UFPR
Caixa Postal 19073
Curitiba, PR 81531-990
Brasil
fone:  55-41-3663144 ramal 206
fax: 55-41-2662042
ICQ: 36546488
http://zoo.bio.ufpr.br/mono/monos.html
wboeger at bio.ufpr.br
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