ANTHRO 7 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Allopatric Speciation, Species Complex, Basilosaurus
Document Summary
Biological species concept: emphasis on reproductive isolation. Ecological species concept: emphasis on natural selection against hybrids. Cryptic species (genetically distinguishable but not morphologically distinguishable) are being discovered more frequently with better dna technology. Process of speciation: allopatric speciation least controversial. Speciation that happens when species get separated. Closely linked to the biological species concept. This meant that evolution was seen as logically impossible, just as it"s impossible for a geometric form to be intermediate between a triangle and a rectangle. One of darwin"s most important insights was that species names are best regarded as pointers to a set of real-world organisms more like a person"s name than a concept like triangle or touchdown or tenure. Basilosaurus - thought to be a fossil reptile, now known to be a fossil whale. Ring species show us speciation in action and also that species aren"t platonic. E. g. herring gulls and lesser blackback gulls. Systematics: taxonomy (classification) and phylogeny (reconstructing evolutionary relationships)
