The other species concepts apart from biological species concepts include; the “ typological species concept, evolutionary species concept, and phylogenetic species concept.” The typological species concept is also known as morphological, essentialist, or phonetic concepts. It is based on species phenotype and morphology, which is still applied in museum research where species are named based on a single type specimen (Duur & Thomas, 2004). To name a species, paleontology only needs a morphology. However, there is a gap due to sexual dimorphism: where a male can be assigned in a different species away from its female, geographical variants: different species viewed differently from different places and stage variants like the cases of caterpillar and butterflies.
The evolutionary species concept considers a species as a series of ancestor descendent populations that have passed through space and time away and independent of other populations and have gained their traits due to historical fate and evolutionary tendencies (Mayden & Wiley, 2000) . The study was done by Gorge Gaylord, a paleontologist whose emphasis was appreciated during the fossil record. The concept presents a gap in the fossil record due to the arbitrary boundaries between different species, particularly those undergoing gradual change.
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As founded by Willing Henning in 1950, phylogenetic species concepts consider a species as branches in a lineage (Theriot & Mishler, 2000) . The lineage breaks and gives rise to several species that share a common ancestor. However, problems arise in this concept. In a real application, phylogenies are unstable hypotheses, not facts, since the branching pattern should be known before defining a species.
The typology species concept has drawn different researchers' attention after the Darwin work. Such is because morphological gaps can diagnose species. For example, Darwin considered primula eletior (the cowslip) and Primula Veris (the primrose) as members of the same species because of several hybrids found between then to plants (Aldhebiani, 2018). The idea was later revived by various numerical taxonomists, especially in the 1960s. A multivariate statistical version called the phonetic species concept was introduced, and currently, the concepts are being broadened.
References
Duur, A. k., & Thomas., K. W. (2004). Comparing the application of a biological and phenetic species concept in the Hebeloma crustuliniforme complex within a phylogenetic framework. Persoonia - Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution of Fungi, 18 (3), 285-316.
Mayden, R. L., & Wiley, E. (2000). A defense of the evolutionary species concept. In Q. D. Wheeler, & R. Meier, Species Concepts and Phylogenetic Theory: A Debate (pp. 16-50). Columbia University Press.
Theriot, E. C., & Mishler, B. D. (2000). The phylogenetic species concept (sensu Mishler and Theriot): monophyly, apomorphy, and phylogenetic species concepts. In Q. D. Wheeler, & R. Meier, Species Concepts and Phylogenetic Theory: A Debate (pp. 4-15). Columbia University Press.
Y.Aldhebiani, A. (2018, March). Species concept and speciation. Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences, 25 (3), 437-440. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sjbs.2017.04.013
