8 quotes found
"The place of origin of the is unknown, but both and ', today neatly separated by the Sahara, found their earliest ancestors in the , while a Potamochoerine, ', survived in into the ."
"This useful book surveys endangered species (and subspecies), stating where each lives and why it is endangered. ... The non-Australian conservationist will find much of interest here. The devastation wreaked by introduced species has been astounding: so many formerly widespread species have been swept off their entire mainland ranges by competition from the introductions, survivng only if their ranges happened to include offshore islands which were not reached by rabbits, hares, foxes, feral cats, introduced rats and mice, goats, donkeys, horses, camels, buffaloes, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds."
"The first of the 'complete theories' of evolution developed in modern times was the of (1969; translation of work published in 1922). While badly hampered by an ignorance of genetics, slow to reach the Russia of the early twentieth century, Berg's consideration of the Darwinian model led him to the conclusion that it was incompatible, at least as the major mechanism, with what he knew of the pattern of living organisms and their evolution."
"As new methods of investigation become available to us, levels of analysis can be conducted: nuances undreamed of by , , , even . Science had advanced, but human behavior has not. People still hunt gorillas for food or trophies, and still cut down their forests; but now those same advances in science also enable forests to be cut down more efficiently, gorillas to be hunted more efficiently, human populations to increase ever faster and press in on the remaining habitat, so that our second-closest relative is threatened with disappearing for ever. More and more, the work of taxonomists and other biologists must be put into the service of conservation."
"Taxonomy has a well-defined role, which is much more than simply stamp-collecting and pigeon-holing. are the units of classification, and ; as such they must be defined as objectively as possible. The biological species concept, still widely used in biology, though predominantly by non-taxonomists and all too often misunderstood, is a process-based concept, which offers no criterion for the classification of beyond and hypothesis. The phylogenetic species concept—a pattern-based concept—is as nearly objective as we are likely to get. Amount of difference is not a criterion for recognizing species. It is not possible to insist on at the specific level, but it is mandatory for the higher categories (, , etc.). The rank we assign to a given supraspecific category should be determined by its time depth."
"This article reviews changes in , especially those pertaining to the meaning of the term species, since its inception two and a half centuries ago. Despite continuing discoveries and the involvement of competent practitioners, the adoption of the polytypic species concept, especially underpinned by the biological species concept, ensured that primate taxonomy was in a sorry state by the middle of the twentieth century. In the latter half of the twentieth century, a gradual rethinking of the nature of species took place, and many different species concepts were proposed. The phylogenetic species concept has been widely adopted over the past ∼20 years, sustained by a gradual realization that species are evolutionary lineages. This review provides examples of how the old way of thinking about species hampered our understanding of primate biodiversity and of how the phylogenetic species concept (or the diagnosability criterion under the general lineage concept) has clarified matters, opening them up for discussion. The adoption of this evolutionary view of species has implications for conservation, particularly because it increases recognition of biodiversity."
"There has been a lot of discussion about ‘the species question’ over the past 20–30 years, and several surveys have converged on the essence of what we mean by species: they are evolutionary lineages ... Species thus have a real existence. This settles the ontological status of the species concept, but it does not necessarily solve the question of how to recognise them; the most logical way of defining species operationally is by the so-called Phylogenetic Species Concept: ‘A species is the smallest population or aggregation of populations which has fixed heritable differences from other such populations or aggregations’ ..."
"While studying under the supervision of , he had the good fortune to meet , , and , all of them famous researchers in the field of Anthropology and Primatology. Equally important to Colin, as he recalled in Groves (2008), was his meeting with − then at ."