Do Species Exist?

Principles of Taxonomic Classification

Kunz, Werner

1. Edition September 2012
XXXIV, 246 Pages, Hardcover
30 Pictures (8 Colored Figures)
Textbook

ISBN: 978-3-527-33207-6

Wiley-VCH, Weinheim

Wiley Online Library Content Sample Chapter Index

Short Description

Written for a wide audience of biologists and philosophers, this text gives an excellent overview of the species problem without delving into the many feuds between the different schools of taxonomy. A perfect companion for field taxonomists and students dealing with the problem.

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Further versions

A readily comprehensible guide for biologists, field taxonomists and interested laymen to one of the oldest problems in biology: the species problem. Written by a geneticist with extensive experience in field taxonomy, this practical book provides the sound scientific background to the problems arising with classifying organisms according to species. It covers the main current theories of specification and gives a number of examples that cannot be explained by any single theory alone.

Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Are species constructs of the human mind?
Why is there a species problem?
What are traits in taxonomy?
Diversity within the species: polymorphisms and the polytypic species
Biological species as a gene-flow community
The cohesion of organisms through genealogical lineage (cladistics)
Outlook
Glossary

Currently a professor in Düsseldorf, Germany, Werner Kunz studied biology, chemistry, and physics in Münster and spent two postdoc years at Yale University in New Haven, U.S.A. Although he was educated as a zoologist, he switched to Drosophila genetics and worked on chromosomes and ribosomal DNA. He later changed his field of interest again, carrying out research into molecular parasitology, and for the past ten years has been participating in the teaching of philosophy of science. Professor Kunz continues the hobby he began at a very early age, photographing birds and butterflies as a field biologist all over the globe.

W. Kunz, Universität Düsseldorf, Germany