Allospecies

The Allospezies (from the Greek. Allos = other , different or foreign to Latin and. Species = kind ) also Allospecies are closely related, but only allopatrisch occurring populations .

The morphological difference between them is more evident than that of subspecies . The previously common name semispecies is used today in a narrower sense. In the wild, the representatives of the allospecies do not meet due to geographical barriers . As a result, their partner recognition systems are often not particularly specific, so that contact between the allospecies in captivity leads to mixing . Two or more allospecies can therefore also be combined to form superspecies .

The term allospecies is not a category in the context of biological systematics , but is only intended to make a certain stage in the speciation process recognizable.

Examples

The North American bison and Eurasian bison are allospecies. They can be crossed completely fertile in the zoo, i.e. they can produce reproductive offspring with each other, as can the North American elk and the European red deer . When these two species were naturalized in New Zealand , mixed groups and hybridizations occurred.

Also allospecies are the plane tree species Platanus occidentalis , which occurs in North America, and Platanus orientalis , which originally comes from Asia Minor. After both species were introduced to Europe, hybrids appeared as early as the 17th century. The bastard Platanus x hybrida is winter-proof, resilient and is now a widespread avenue tree, especially in large cities.

literature

• Rolf Sauermost (Red.): Lexicon of Biology, Vol. 1 . Spectrum Academic Publishing House, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-8274-0326-X .
• Walter Sudhaus, Klaus Rehfeld: Introduction to Phylogenetics and Systematics. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-437-20475-0 .