The evolutionary reality of species and higher taxa in plants : a survey of post-modern opinion and evidence

• Species are normally considered to be the fundamental unit for understanding the evolution of biodiversity. Yet, in a survey of botanists in 1940, twice as many felt that plant genera were more natural units than plant species. Revisiting the survey, we found more people now regarded species as a more evolutionarily real unit, but a sizeable number still felt that genera were more evolutionarily real than species. Definitions of evolutionarily real' split into those based on shared evolutionary history and those based on shared evolutionary fate via ongoing evolutionary processes. We discuss recent work testing for shared evolutionary fate at the species and higher levels and present preliminary evidence for evolutionarily significant higher taxa in plants.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

evolutionary fate

higher taxa

independent limitation

land plants

species

survey

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

for (subject category)