Reconciling evolutionary theory and taxonomic practice

Abstract

The notion of evolution is a notion of change; yet, biologists customarily define each species as if it were a static class. One approach to this supposed disconnect between evolutionary theories and taxonomic practices would be to change those practices. Instead, the author claims this alleged disparity is a misreading. For the most part, it disappears under a proposed modified essentialist species concept involving unique species-specific developmental suites. Each suite specific to a natural species is envisioned as a number of dispositional alternatives expressed distributively among the organisms in that species. There is support for this species concept in recent work in comparative genomics and developmental genetics. The concept is compatible with intraspecific variation and gradual evolution, and unifies practice and theory. It leads to an extended model of speciation and to an observational protocol for testing the concept and model. © 2011 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.