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One of the problems with that is ring species: if A can mate with B, and B can mate with C, but A and C cannot mate, are A and C the same species?
by jmgao 6y ago
One of the problems with that is ring species: if A can mate with B, and B can mate with C, but A and C cannot mate, are A and C the same species?
- posterboy 6y agoWell, if AxB and BxC can mate, then the off spring has genes from A and C so by some second degree derivative they can mate. iff. Not my field of interest but I feel reminded of dialects and how difficult it is to define language. The dialect with a military meme has some truth to it, when variet are measured against a standard or prestige dialect. B obviously has an advantage so unless other disadvantages apply, it would be dominant. A societal (?) or socio-cultural definition is interesting as well. Even genetically identical specimen couldn't mate if on opposite sites of the globe, and they are bound to drift eventually. I do kindle with the idea that groups have to be understood as organisms in their own right, but I never read anything specific about it. About language families, it is startling how anthropologists reason about language by proxy via archaogenetics. Lots of open questions there, too.
- cutemonster 6y ago> are A and C the same species? To me, they are not. (In my not-know-much about this opinion) And B is a bridge species, or A C adapter species, sort of? But is this ABC situation really common? So frequent so motivates how to (not) define what a species is?