Biodiv Sci ›› 2016, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (9): 979-999.  DOI: 10.17520/biods.2016203

Special Issue: 物种概念专题 物种形成与系统进化

• Special Feature: Species Concept • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Biodiversity pursuits need a scientific and operative species concept

De-Yuan Hong*()   

  1. State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093
  • Online:2016-09-20 Published:2016-10-09
  • Contact: Hong De-Yuan

Abstract:

The future of human being may rely on biodiversity, and thus depends on how to investigate, conserve, and rationally use biodiversity. Species is the basic unit of biodiversity, and therefore rational delimitation of species is one of the crucial issues for biodiversity pursuits. However, no species concept published until now is both scientific and operative. A tentative species concept is proposed here just for discussion.

Key words: biodiversity, species delimitation, species concept, biological species concept, genetic species concept, evolutionary species concept, phylogenetic species concept, ecological species concept, taxonomic species concept