Back to required reading

Survey piece on species:

• Ereshefsky, M. (2010), Species, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The most recent and in my opinion, best defense of the Biological Species Concept is Jerry Coyne and Allen Orr's Speciation. The first chapter sets out there agenda and describes their view about species. The rest of the chapter are about their research on speciation (meaning the evolution of reproductive isolation mechanisms). The appendix consists of their criticisms of most other major definitions of species. The Dawkins piece is a short piece on species that is part of The Ancestor's Tale. He basically defends the BSC but points out the logic behind some of its apparent absurdities.

• Coyne, J. and Orr, H. A. (2004), Speciation (Chapter 1)
• Coyne, J. and Orr, H. A. (2004), Speciation (Appendix [scroll past the second half of chap 1])
• Dawkins, (2004), The Salamander's Tale (from The Ancestor's Tale)

The piece we read of mine cited Harrison (1998) which is a very good piece about the relationship between the BSC and the PSC. He refers to a version of a Phylogenetic Species Concept which he calls the Genealogical Species Concept which is based on gene tree concordance. This view was first developed in Baum and Shaw (1995). Less strict and so improved versions have been discussed a few times since, most recently in Baum (2009) and Velasco (2010).

• Baum, D. and Shaw, K. (1995), Genealogical Perspectives on the Species Problem
• Baum, D. (2009), Species as Ranked Taxa
• Velasco, J.D. (2010), Species, Genes, and the Tree of Life

A clear paper which sets out an agenda for phylogenetic species concepts is Baum and Donoghue (1995). They distinguish two different kinds of PSCs - those that are history based (like the gene concordance view) and those that are character based.

• Baum, D. and Donoghue, M. (1995), Choosing Among Alternative Phylogenetic Species Concepts

Velasco (2008) criticizes an argument from LaPorte (2005). LaPorte responds (indirectly by responding to a number of objections) in LaPorte (2009).

• LaPorte, J. (2005), Is There a Single, Objective Evolutionary Tree of Life?
• LaPorte, J. (2009), On Systematists' Single Objective Tree of Ancestors and Descendants

Brent Mishler is mainly responsible for recent arguments that we should get rid of talk of species (but there are others). A good piece is his 1999 below and then there is a back and forth with Claridge in Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Biology

• Mishler, B. (1999), Getting rid of species
• Mishler, B. (2010), Species are not Uniquely Real Biological Entities
• Claridge, M. (2010), Species are Uniquely Real Biological Entities (the counterpoint to Mishler's 2010 above piece)