Systematics and the Origin of Species

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Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist is a book written by zoologist and evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, first published in 1942 by Columbia University Press. [1] The book became one of the canonical publications on the modern synthesis and is considered to be exemplary of the original expansion of evolutionary theory. [2] The book is considered one of his greatest and most influential. [3]

Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist contains a reassessment of previous evidence regarding the mechanisms of biological evolution. [4] The points of view of modern systematics are compared with views from other life science fields, attempting to bridge the gap between different biological disciplines. [4] In his book, Mayr attempts to summarize the knowledge within his field of systemics, investigates the main factors involved in taxonomic work, and presents some evidence regarding the origin of species [4] Species concepts are discussed and Mayr proposes a definition of the species category where he considers species groups of natural populations which are reproductively isolated from each other. [5] This concept Ernst Mayr proposes here is now commonly referred to as the biological species concept. The biological species concept defines a species in terms of biological factors such as reproduction, taking into account ecology, geography, and life history; it remains an important and useful idea in biology, particularly for animal speciation. [2] Despite acceptance and approval of his species definition, his input did little to resolve the long-standing disagreements concerning the issue of species concepts. [5]

With his addition of the formulation of his species definition, Ernst Mayr was able to express the question of the species definition as a biological rather than topological issue [6] After the publication of his species concept, Mayr became a major figure in the biological as well as the philosophical components of the debate regarding the problem of species concepts. [7]

Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist was created after Ernst Mayr's Jesup lectures in New York City. [8] Mayr's Jesup lectures were held alongside the botanist Edgar Anderson, who discussed evolutionary theory from the perspective of those with a background in botany. [8] The lectures discussed population thinking, evolutionary dynamics between plants and animals, and other central issues in what the field that later came to be known as Evolutionary Synthesis. [8] These Jesup lectures by Ernst Mayr and Edgar Anderson were meant as a follow-up to Theodosius Dobhanzky's own Jesup lectures in 1936 which resulted in his book Genetics and the Origin of Species , published in 1937. [8] [9] Edgar Anderson did not publish his talks from the 1941 Jesup lectures with Mayr. [8]

In December 2004 the National Academy of Sciences held a colloquium in honour of Mayr's 100th birthday at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Science and Engineering in Irvine, California. [10] Systematics and the Origin of Species: On Ernst Mayr's 100th Anniversary was published by National Academies Press in 2005 in commemoration of this event. [10] The lectures published in this collection explore the main topics discussed in Ernst Mayr's Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist. [2] These topics include reproductive isolation, the modern species concept, genomics, and other related subjects within evolutionary biology. [10]

Contents

  1. The Methods and Principles of Systematics
  2. Taxonomic Characters and Their Variation
  3. Phenomena of Geographic Variation
  4. Some Aspects of Geographic Variation
  5. The Systematic Categories and the New Species Concept
  6. The Polytypic Species, in Nature and in Systematics
  7. The Species in Evolution
  8. Nongeographic Speciation
  9. The Biology of Speciation
  10. The Higher Categories and Evolution

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Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, philosopher of biology, and historian of science. His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics, systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the development of the biological species concept.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Punctuated equilibrium</span> Theory in evolutionary biology

In evolutionary biology, punctuated equilibrium is a theory that proposes that once a species appears in the fossil record, the population will become stable, showing little evolutionary change for most of its geological history. This state of little or no morphological change is called stasis. When significant evolutionary change occurs, the theory proposes that it is generally restricted to rare and geologically rapid events of branching speciation called cladogenesis. Cladogenesis is the process by which a species splits into two distinct species, rather than one species gradually transforming into another.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodosius Dobzhansky</span> Russian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist (1900–1975)

Theodosius Grigorievich Dobzhansky was a prominent Ukrainian and American geneticist and evolutionary biologist. He was a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis. Born in the Russian Empire, Dobzhansky emigrated to the United States in 1927, aged 27.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Modern synthesis (20th century)</span> Fusion of natural selection with Mendelian inheritance

The modern synthesis was the early 20th-century synthesis of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and Gregor Mendel's ideas on heredity into a joint mathematical framework. Julian Huxley coined the term in his 1942 book, Evolution: The Modern Synthesis.

Allopatric speciation – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from each other to an extent that prevents or interferes with gene flow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evolutionary biology</span> Study of the processes that produced the diversity of life

Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth. Evolution holds that all species are related and gradually change over generations. In a population, the genetic variations affect the phenotypes of an organism. These changes in the phenotypes will be an advantage to some organisms, which will then be passed onto their offspring. Some examples of evolution in species over many generations are the peppered moth and flightless birds. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biology emerged through what Julian Huxley called the modern synthesis of understanding, from previously unrelated fields of biological research, such as genetics and ecology, systematics, and paleontology.

<i>Genetics and the Origin of Species</i> 1937 book by Theodosius Dobzhansky

Genetics and the Origin of Species is a 1937 book by the Ukrainian-American evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky. It is regarded as one of the most important works of modern synthesis and was one of the earliest. The book popularized the work of population genetics to other biologists and influenced their appreciation for the genetic basis of evolution. In his book, Dobzhansky applied the theoretical work of Sewall Wright (1889–1988) to the study of natural populations, allowing him to address evolutionary problems in a novel way during his time. Dobzhansky implements theories of mutation, natural selection, and speciation throughout his book to explain the habits of populations and the resulting effects on their genetic behavior. The book explains evolution in depth as a process over time that accounts for the diversity of all life on Earth. The study of evolution was present, but greatly neglected at the time. Dobzhansky illustrates that evolution regarding the origin and nature of species during this time in history was deemed mysterious, but had expanding potential for progress to be made in its field.

Tempo and Mode in Evolution (1944) was George Gaylord Simpson's seminal contribution to the evolutionary synthesis, which integrated the facts of paleontology with those of genetics and natural selection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">G. Ledyard Stebbins</span> American botanist and geneticist (1906-2000)

George Ledyard Stebbins Jr. was an American botanist and geneticist who is widely regarded as one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Stebbins received his Ph.D. in botany from Harvard University in 1931. He went on to the University of California, Berkeley, where his work with E. B. Babcock on the genetic evolution of plant species, and his association with a group of evolutionary biologists known as the Bay Area Biosystematists, led him to develop a comprehensive synthesis of plant evolution incorporating genetics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco J. Ayala</span> Philosopher and biologist (1934–2023)

Francisco José Ayala Pereda was a Spanish-American evolutionary biologist, philosopher, and Catholic priest who was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Irvine and University of California, Davis.

<i>Variation and Evolution in Plants</i> 1950 book by American botanist G. Ledyard Stebbins

Variation and Evolution in Plants is a book written by G. Ledyard Stebbins, published in 1950. It is one of the key publications embodying the modern synthesis of evolution and genetics, as the first comprehensive publication to discuss the relationship between genetics and natural selection in plants. The book has been described by plant systematist Peter H. Raven as "the most important book on plant evolution of the 20th century" and it remains one of the most cited texts on plant evolution.

Edgar Shannon Anderson was an American botanist. He introduced the term introgressive hybridization and his 1949 book of that title was an original and important contribution to botanical genetics. HIs work on the transfer and origin of adaptations through natural hybridization continues to be relevant.

A species concept is a framework for differentiating different species. There are at least 26 recognized species concepts. A species concept that works well for sexually reproducing organisms such as birds may be useless for species that reproduce asexually, such as bacteria. The scientific study of the species problem has been called microtaxonomy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Moritz Wagner (naturalist)</span>

Moritz Wagner was a German explorer, collector, geographer and natural historian. Wagner devoted three years (1836–1839) to the exploration of Algiers: it was here that he made important observations in natural history, which he later supplemented and developed: that geographical isolation could play a key role in speciation.

In biology, a species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour, or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined.

Jody Hey is an evolutionary biologist at Temple University. In the 1980s and 1990s he did research on natural selection and species divergence in fruit flies (Drosophila). More recently he has worked on the development of methods for studying evolutionary divergence, on the divergence of cichlid fishes from Lake Malawi, on chimpanzees and on human populations. His research on divergence and speciation also lead him to study the difficulties of identifying species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of evolution</span>

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to evolution:

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Reticulate evolution, or network evolution is the origination of a lineage through the partial merging of two ancestor lineages, leading to relationships better described by a phylogenetic network than a bifurcating tree. Reticulate patterns can be found in the phylogenetic reconstructions of biodiversity lineages obtained by comparing the characteristics of organisms. Reticulation processes can potentially be convergent and divergent at the same time. Reticulate evolution indicates the lack of independence between two evolutionary lineages. Reticulation affects survival, fitness and speciation rates of species. 

Kevin de Queiroz is a vertebrate, evolutionary, and systematic biologist. He has worked in the phylogenetics and evolutionary biology of squamate reptiles, the development of a unified species concept and of a phylogenetic approach to biological nomenclature, and the philosophy of systematic biology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of speciation</span> Aspect of history

The scientific study of speciation — how species evolve to become new species — began around the time of Charles Darwin in the middle of the 19th century. Many naturalists at the time recognized the relationship between biogeography and the evolution of species. The 20th century saw the growth of the field of speciation, with major contributors such as Ernst Mayr researching and documenting species' geographic patterns and relationships. The field grew in prominence with the modern evolutionary synthesis in the early part of that century. Since then, research on speciation has expanded immensely.

References

  1. Mayr E (1942). Systematics and the Origin of Species. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
  2. 1 2 3 Hey J, Fitch WM, Ayala FJ (May 2005). "Systematics and the origin of species: an introduction". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 102 (Suppl 1): 6515–9. Bibcode:2005PNAS..102.6515H. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0501939102 . PMC   1131868 . PMID   15851660.
  3. Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist — Ernst Mayr. 15 October 1999. ISBN   9780674862500 . Retrieved 2021-09-23.{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  4. 1 2 3 Mayr E (1999). Systematics and the origin of species, from the viewpoint of a zoologist (1st Harvard University Press pbk. ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. ISBN   0-674-86250-3. OCLC   41565294.
  5. 1 2 De Queiroz K (October 2005). "13: Ernst Mayr and the Modern Concept of Species.". In Ayala FJ, Fitch WM, Hey J (eds.). Systematics and the origin of species: on Ernst Mayr's 100th anniversary. Washington DC: National Academies Press.
  6. Yoder AD, Olson LE, Hanley C, Heckman KL, Rasoloarison R, Russell AL, et al. (May 2005). "A multidimensional approach for detecting species patterns in Malagasy vertebrates". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 102 (Suppl 1): 6587–94. Bibcode:2005PNAS..102.6587Y. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0502092102 . PMC   1131875 . PMID   15851666.
  7. Jody H, Fitch WM, Ayala FJ (2005). "Part III: The Nature of Species and the Meaning of Species". In Hey J, Fitch WM, Ayala FJ (eds.). Systematics and the Origin of Species: On Ernst Mayr's 100th Anniversary. Washington DC: The National Academies Press.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Kleinman K (2012-06-09). "Systematics and the origin of species from the viewpoint of a botanist: edgar anderson prepares the 1941 jesup lectures with ernst mayr". Journal of the History of Biology. 46 (1): 73–101. doi:10.1007/s10739-012-9325-9. PMID   22684268. S2CID   19226328.
  9. Ayala FJ, Fitch WM (July 1997). "Genetics and the origin of species: an introduction". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 94 (15): 7691–7. Bibcode:1997PNAS...94.7691A. doi: 10.1073/pnas.94.15.7691 . PMC   33678 . PMID   9223250.
  10. 1 2 3 "Systematics and the Origin of Species. On Ernst Mayr's 100th Anniversary". National Academy of Sciences Online. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 30 October 2013.