Toward the synthesis of taxonomy, ontogeny, and phylogenetics: A new concept of Ontogenetic Systematics

Over the past decade, the morphological paradigm in the traditional field of systematics and evolutionary biology has been challenged and has actually been replaced by the molecular paradigm. In this study, an attempt is made to evaluate the current state of the problem concerning the relationship between the fundamentals of systematics and evolution. It is shown that the interrelatedness of evolution, ontogeny, systematics, and phylogenetics is deeply underestimated in the approaches used in recent research. Instead of considering the above fields of biology as separate categories, as is common in recent studies, the synthetic concept of ontogenetic systematics is proposed, which unifies them into an integrated process.