NDLI: Evaluating Maclaurin and Sterelny’s conception of biodiversity in cases of frequent, promiscuous lateral gene transfer

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Morgan, Gregory J.
Copyright Year	2010
Abstract	The recent conception of biodiversity proposed by James Maclaurin and Sterelny was developed mostly with macrobiological life in mind. They suggest that we measure biodiversity by dividing life into natural units (typically species) and quantifying the differences among units using phenetic rather than phylogenetic measures of distance. They identify problems in implementing quantitative phylogenetic notions of difference for non-prokaryotic species. I suggest that if we focus on microbiological life forms that engage in frequent, promiscuous lateral gene transfer (LGT), and their associated reticulated phylogenies, we need to rethink the notion of species as the natural unit, and we discover additional problems with phylogenetic notions of distance. These problems suggest that a phenetic approach based on morphospaces has just as much appeal, if not more, for microbes as they do for multi-cellular life. Facts about LGT, however, offer no new insight into the additional challenge of reconciling units and differences into a single measure of biodiversity.
Starting Page	603
Ending Page	621
Page Count	19
File Format	PDF
ISSN	01693867
Journal	Biology & Philosophy
Volume Number	25
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	15728404
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2010-05-16
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Biodiversity Microbial species Modi Ecotype Networks Non-hierarchical classification Lateral gene Transfer Morphospace Evolutionary Biology Philosophy of Biology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Philosophy Agricultural and Biological Sciences History and Philosophy of Science

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