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Species as a Process

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Abstract

Species are generally considered to be the basic units of evolution, and hence to constitute spatio-temporally bounded entities. In addition, it has been argued that species also instantiate a natural kind. Evolution is fundamentally about change. The question then is how species can remain the same through evolutionary change. Proponents of the species qua individuals thesis individuate species through their unique evolutionary origin. Individuals, or spatio-temporally located particulars in general, can be bodies, objects, events, or processes, or a combination of these. It is here argued that species are best understood as open or closed, causally integrated processual systems that also instantiate an historically conditioned homeostatic property cluster natural kind.

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Notes

  1. The use of the concepts of ‘monophyly’, ‘paraphyly’, and ‘polyphyly’ to species and populations is controversial, but entrenched in phylogeography (Avise 2000).

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Acknowledgments

I thank Rasmus Winther, Francisco Vergara-Silva, and Ingo Brigandt who read an earlier draft of this paper, offering much helpful advice and criticism.

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  1. Department of Geology, The Field Museum, 1400 S Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL, 60605-2496, USA

    Olivier Rieppel

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Rieppel, O. Species as a Process. Acta Biotheor 57, 33–49 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-008-9057-6

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