THE DRIVING FORCE - SPECIES CONCEPTS AND ECOLOGY

The Biological Species Concept (BSC), the Evolutionary Species Concept (EvSC) and the Ecological Species Concept (EcSC) are models, not definitions. The BSC has its principal flaw in its inability to deal with uniparentally reproducing organisms. It fails to identify the driving force of speciation. It therefore fails to predict diversity and to explain why different species have different reproductive strategies. The EvSC fails to explain why different lineages are phenetically different. It fails, therefore, to explain why species arise, and why there are differences in diversity and reproductive strategies. The EcSC has the potential to make a direct connection between environment and phenetic variation patterns. In some taxonomically difficult cases, it also sheds light on the nature of variation patterns and might therefore help in taxonomic judgement where the BSC is conceptually inapplicable and the EvSC fails to provide useful concepts. -from Author