Real species

[Don.Colless at CSIRO.AU]

Bob Mesibov wrote:
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That's why Wiley's 'evolutionary species' concept is so useful: 'A
species is a
single lineage of ancestral descendant populations of organisms which
maintains its identity from other such lineages and which has its own
evolutionary tendencies and historical fate'. Since we can never be sure
what
the historical fate of a particular lineage will be (it hasn't happened
yet),
describing that lineage as a species, i.e. an evolutionary species, is
always a
judgment call. It's an hypothesis, and explicitly so.
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I find a problem here with the term "lineage". De Queiroz defined one fairly precisely, but I don't think that is what is intended here. Could someone enlighten me?

Don Colless,
Div of Entomology, CSIRO,
GPO Box 1700,
Canberra. 2601.
Email: don.colless at csiro.au
Tuz li munz est miens envirun