Why the phylogenetic species concept? Elementary

Although species play a number of unique and necessary roles in biology, no ne are more important than as the elements of phylogeny, nomenclature, and biodiversity study. Species are not divisible into any smaller units among which shared derived characters can be recognized with fidelity. Biodiversi ty inventory, assessment, and conservation are dependent upon a uniformly a pplicable species concept Species are the fundamental units in formal Linna ean classification and zoological nomenclature. The Biological Species Conc ept, long given nominal support by most zoologists, forced an essentialy ta xonomic problem (what are species?) into a population genetics framework (w hy are there species?). Early efforts at a phylogenetic species concept foc used on correcting problems in the Biological Species Concept associated wi th ancestral populations, then applying phylogenetic logic to species thems elves. Subsequently, Eldredge and Cracraft, and Nelson and Platnick, each p roposed essentially identical and truly phylogenetic species concepts that permitted the rigorous recognition of species prior to and for the purposes of phylogenetic analysis, yet maintained the integrity of the Phylogenetic Species Concept outside of cladistic analysis. Such phylogenetic elements have many benefits, including giving to biology a unit species concept appl icable across all kinds of living things including sexual and asexual forms . This is possible because the Phylogenetic Species Concept is based on pat terns of character distributions and is therefore consistent with the full range of possible evolutionary processes that contribute to species formati on, including both biotic and abiotic (even random) factors.