[Taxacom] (no subject)

[Frederick W Schueler]

Don.Colless at csiro.au wrote:

 > ...seem to believe that a SPECIES can breed in shallow water, bite 
humans, etc. But surely this is just shorthand for the statement that 
MEMBERS of that species breed in shallow water, etc. No matter how real, 
a species has no mouthparts for biting people! For me, Aedes aegypti is 
about as real (or unreal) as the Canberra Raiders football team. These 
things are "clusters", sort of halfway between individuals and classes.

* but the attributes of biting People and breeding in shallow water can 
be part of a niche space, which a species could be said to occupy, and a 
species could be visualized as a cluster of individuals in a niche space.

Then the ecological "species question" is whether Mosquitoes occupy 
their niche space homogeneously or lumpily, and, if lumpily, to what 
extent (or how) the clusters in niche space match up with clusters in 
"descent space" and "morphology space."

fred.
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