Biology II OpenStax Worksheets Biological Species Handout Chapter 19

Biological species concept

The biological species concept defines a species as members of populations that actually or potentially interbreed in nature, not according to similarity of appearance. Although appearance is helpful in identifying species, it does not define species.

Appearance isn't everything
Organisms may appear to be alike and be different species. For example, Western meadowlarks (Sturnella neglecta) and Eastern meadowlarks (Sturnella magna) look almost identical to one another, yet do not interbreed with each other — thus, they are separate species according to this definition.

Meadowlarks

Many characteristics can vary within a single species. For example, the plant hydrangea may have pink "flowers" — they're actually modified leaves — or blue "flowers." But that doesn't mean that we should classify the two forms as different species. In fact, you could cause a blue-"flowered" plant to become a pink-"flowered" plant just by changing the pH of the soil and the amount of aluminum taken up by the plant.Organisms may look different and yet be the same species. For example, look at these ants. You might think that they are distantly related species. In fact, they are sisters—two ants of the species Pheidole barbata, fulfilling different roles in the same colony.

Pheidole barbata

Adding to the problem
We already pointed out two of the difficulties with the biological species concept: what do you do with asexual organisms, and what do you do with organisms that occasionally form hybrids with one another? Other difficulties include:

• What is meant by "potentially interbreeding?" If a population of frogs were divided by a freeway, as shown below, that prevented the two groups of frogs from interbreeding, should we designate them as separate species? Probably not — but how distantly separated do they have to be before we draw the line?