Morphospecies

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With morphospecies or morphospecies ( Art word from Greek. Μορφή "shape, form" and lat. Species " type ") is in the biology means a set of individuals in major characteristics matches the physique and such on the basis of these features from all other ensembles can distinguish. Arthur Cronquist provides a definition : "Species are the smallest groups that are consistently and continuously different (from other groups) and can be distinguished (from other groups) by the usual means."

Usually in biology a species is defined as a reproductive community whose individuals can be freely crossed with one another, have fertile offspring and which are reproductively isolated from members of other populations. However, this definition of biospecies cannot be applied to organisms that have only been handed down in fossil form or that reproduce only asexually or parthenogenetically . Therefore, species in these areas are almost exclusively defined as morpho species.

Strictly speaking, the overwhelming majority of recent species with sexual reproduction have so far only been defined as morpho species, since these species have mostly only been described on the basis of a smaller or larger number of documents in various natural history museums . This applies above all to the species in the tropics, but also to a considerable part of the flora and fauna of Central Europe.

But there are also cases in which there are crossing barriers within a morphologically defined species without distinguishing between several species. This applies, for example, to many native plant species, of which several chromosome races of different ploidy levels are known. Hybridization between these can only give sterile offspring. Mention should be made here of the uneven-leaved bedstraw ( Galium anisophyllon , 2n = 22, 44, 66, 88, 110) or the meadow bellflower ( Campanula patula , 2n = 20, 40).

See also

literature

  • Peter Ax : The Phylogenetic System. Systematization of living nature based on its natural phylogenesis. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart 1984.
  • Walter Sudhaus and Klaus Rehfeld: Introduction to Phylogenetics and Systematics. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1992.

Individual evidence

  1. Arthur Cronquist: Once again, what is a species? In: LV Knutson (Ed.): BioSystematics in Agriculture. Alleheld Osmun, Montclair (NJ) 1978, pp. 3-20.