[PCA] Excessive species splitting in mammals and its bearing on conservation

[De Angelis, Patricia]

Please see the thought-provoking abstract below and the attached letter
addressed to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the
International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Specialist Groups
about the changing species concept. Although this letter and the associated
publication are aimed mammals, the points being made could be equally
applicable to plants. It would also be interesting to further examine the
effects of excessive lumping.

Patricia S. De Angelis, Ph.D.
Botanist, Division of Scientific Authority-US Fish & Wildlife
Service-International Affairs
Chair, Medicinal Plant Working Group-Plant Conservation Alliance
4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Suite 110
Arlington, VA  22203
703-358-1708 x1753
FAX: 703-358-2276

Promoting sustainable use and conservation of our native medicinal plants.
<www.nps.gov/plants/medicinal>

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---------- Forwarded message ----------



Species splitting puts conservation at risk
A worrying trend over the past decade has been the taxonomic splitting of
mammal species,
mostly by raising subspecies to species. Because of its potential bearing
on conservation, we
advise caution in this practice, which we maintain should be based solely
on peer-reviewed
evidence of biological validity. This trend is mainly the result of a shift
from the biological
to the phylogenetic species concept. The biological species concept holds
that species are
groups of (actually or potentially) interbreeding populations.
The phylogenetic species concept and
its variants, by contrast, define species either as the smallest cluster
sharing genetically
transmitted characters, such that all individuals are
unequivocally diagnosable on the basis of those
characters, or as monophyletic assemblages. In these, all individuals
sharing a common
ancestor belong to one species, with common ancestry inferred on the basis
of shared derived
characters (see, for example, C. Groves and P. Grubb Ungulate Taxonomy
Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2011).  As well as confusing the functional meaning of
a species, taxon splitting could be
detrimental to conservation. If threatened species are incorrectly split
into several units and
managed as such, for example in captive breeding or metapopulation
management, there
could be unnecessary loss of genetic variation and an increased risk of
extinction.
Such newly designated species call into question the suitability of Red
List assessments and the
legality of species identified under national laws and
international agreements. It is vital to identify
true species as conservation units, based on adequate sample sizes and on
information pertaining
to genetics, morphology and behaviour.
Frank E. Zachos* Natural History Museum Vienna, Austria.

Citation:
Frank E. Zachosa,*, Marco Apolloniob, Eva V. Bärmannc, Marco
Festa-Bianchetd, Ursula Göhlicha,
Jan Christian Habele, Elisabeth Haringa,f, Luise Kruckenhausera, Sandro
Lovarig, Allan D. McDevitth,
Cino Pertoldii, Gertrud E. Rössnerj,k,l, Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagram,
Massimo Scandurab,
Franz Suchentrunkn. Species inflation and taxonomic artefacts--A critical
comment on recent trends in
mammalian classification. *Mammalian Biology *78(2013)1-6
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