Speciation through the looking ‐glass

We respond to a comment by Allmon WD (2016), who attempted to demonstrate that species are biologically ‘real’ as justification for retaining the terms ‘anagenesis’ and ‘cladogenesis’, which we argue are not necessary for the study of evolutionary biology (Vaux F, Trewick SA & Morgan‐Richards M, 2016). Here, we summarize a wealth of literature demonstrating that supposedly separate species introgress frequently, and we clarify that evolutionary lineage‐splitting with genotypic and phenotypic divergence (speciation) is not the same as taxonomic classification. The usefulness of the terms anagenesis and cladogenesis requires agreement on their meaning, and this debate reflects a wider dilemma in academic communication: whether to use imprecisely defined jargon or longer sentences with simple words. We favour the latter, because biological evolution operates under straightforward and generalizable principles that should not require complicated descriptions, especially when its study requires collaboration among many disciplines.

Source: Biological Journal of the Linnean Society - August 31, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Felix Vaux, Steven A. Trewick, Mary Morgan ‐Richards Tags: Comment Source Type: research