Should the term species be used?

Taxonomy is the source of much disagreement in biology. Many ecologists and physiologists don't even think it's important to know or be able to identify species, while taxonomists and systematists regularly insist that proper identification is the basis of all biological information.I tend to side with the taxonomists on this one. Taxonomy itself (the basic classification of life forms into categories such as "family," "species" and "kingdom") is a rather invalid way of viewing biodiversity, but it is a necessary convention in order to enable better communication of information between researchers.When speaking of the names of biological species, there are a number of conventions that biologists use.For instance, each species is referred to by a binomial name consisting of a "generic name" and a "specific epithet" (example: Tyrannosaurus rex). "Tyrannosaurus" is the generic name (name of the genus) and "rex" is the specific epithet (name of the species). Binomial names are always supposed to be written in italics (or underlined when written by hand).Generic names are always capitalized. Specific epithets are not.Binomials are often abbreviated by using only the first letter of the generic name and the full specific epithet. The proper format is T. rex, not T-Rex or T-rex as is often written by the lay public.A species epithet is never to be used in isolation, without the generic name either in full or abbreviated (although this rule is frequently violated). Example: afarensis should be written: Australopithecus afarensis or A. afarensis.Also of interest is that the common names of dinosaurs usually derive from their generic names (e.g., "Triceratops" is both the generic name and the common name for Triceratops horridus, and also for another species, "T. prorsus," which may or may not be valid). One exception is Tyrannosaurus rex, which, for whatever reason, lay sources insist on referring to by the full binomial, without realizing that they are violating basic requirements of parallelism in writing and presentation by not also calling "Triceratops" by its full binomial.This is, of course, relatively harmless when it's just used for kids' books and toys, because the non-systematic approach for kids' products is sufficient to fill the kids' needs to choose their favorite dinosaur and play games with their friends.But, for scientists, more rigor is generally needed (particularly for living organisms), and I must insist that the concept of species (whatever definition you feel is most valid) is absolutely critical for the sake of communication among scientists, despite the inherent kinks, hitches and constant revisions that the system must undergo.Sorry for the rambling, but I felt like it was important to at least make sure people were aware of conventions, even if you don't care and don't intend to follow them: just so long as you know they are there and that they do have a purpose in science.Edited by Bluejay, : superfluous quote

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Wolfwing.We're talking past each other.Let me make something clear. Everybody who has replied on this thread knows how evolution works and knows what it means for the definition of the term "species."We all know that evolution is messy and makes "species" indistinct and the lines between them blurry.We are arguing that, despite this, the species concept is still useful and important for a number of reasons, such as its utility in communication among scientists, and its accuracy in describing a number of real-world cases in which populations are distinct enough to be considered isolated species.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Wolfwing. This is a different scenario. Relativity was a new theory that replaced an old theory because it worked better."Species" isn't a theory: it's just a system of naming things.In physics, they regularly deal with thought exercises that involve frictionless surfaces. This is obviously not an appropriate way to solve problems about the real world, but it is a way to get at a principle by ignoring one extraneous factor (friction).The same thing applies for the "species" concept. It's the taxonomist's version of a frictionless surface. It's an ideal, a way of pretending that the complications don't exist in order to help us get at some other principle. For example, I can lump the spiders I work with into groups (species) that seem distinct from one another, and learn about fundamental processes of ecology by comparing these groups to each other.In time, we may have the database and the computer and statistical tools necessary to analyze organisms as clades, rather than as species; but the complexity of that sort of system would make it statistically and logistically very unwieldy. I think we'll just have to suffer with the confusion and creationist misapprehensions for the time being.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Phage. This is an ongoing discussion that I'm having with two members of my lab who used to work in systematics labs.While all systems of classification and naming are based on arbitrary criteria to some degree or another, some are undoubtedly more arbitrary than others. For instance, the current fad of using genetic divergences and COI barcodes to define species is clearly an arbitrary enterprise.As an ecologist, I contend that the systems based on these methods are seeking a solution that has much more precision than is biologically or ecologically meaningful. My main problem with these methods is that a large amount of the product they generate is relatively useless outside of a very narrow range of scenarios.I agree that organizing our information is very important, but there comes a point at which the organization is being done serves little purpose beyond organizing stuff, and this is the point at which we need to question whether the end-product justifies the resources pumped into it. I feel that many lines of research into classification systems already passed this point a long time ago.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.