PS101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 19: Allopatric Speciation, Somatic Cell, Population Genetics
Document Summary
According to the stanford encyclopedia the nature of species is controversial in biology and philosophy. Biologists disagree on the definition of the term species" species are the fundamental taxonomic units of biological classification. Biological species concept defines a species as a group of organisms that can successfully interbreed and produce fertile offspring. The phylogenetic species concept defines species as a group of organisms bound. The ecological species concept defines a species as a group of organisms that by a unique ancestry. share a distinct ecological niche. There are several problems with the biological species concept defined above. One important problem is that although the definition can work for species that reproduce sexually, it does not deal with species that reproduce asexually. Patterns of reproduction can blur the definition of species. Androdioecous organisms exist as natural populations of functional males and hermaphrodites but include no true females.