BSC

[Frederick W. Schueler]

Gurcharan Singh wrote:

> The problems of both sexually reproducing  and asexually reproducing
> species are addressed by "Evolutionary species concept" which describes
> species as "single lineage of ancestor-descendent populations which
> maintains its identity from other such lineages and which has its own
> evolutionary tendencies  and biological fate". This takes care of
> both sexually & asexually reproducing organisms.

* Okay, but it seems to me that the interesting question here, and the
kind of study that might finally do something to settle the 'species
question' is to somehow test the hypothesis that the phenetic and
genetic patterns of similarity, dissimilarity, geography, etc., seen the
full range of organic taxa are or are not similar to those we see in
familiar sexual, non-colonial, motile-but-not-planktonic, short-lived,
Vertebrates and Insects.  Or are the 'biological species' in these groups
just a consequence of their lifestyle and breeding system rather than a
more fundamental result of the intrisic structure of ecological
communities?

fred schueler.
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         Eastern    Ontario    Biodiversity    Museum
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