Species Concept

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The species concept
The Darwin’s evolutionary theory was based on the natural selection. Darwin had to explain to the world the evolutionary theory because the concept of species was never known by the scientists during that time. The term species is used to similar objects or things with common features. The term species is applied to the living organisms to group them into either humans or fish (Mayr, 15). The term species can also be applied to non-living objects, for example, the species of minerals. This led to the confusion of the term species.
The topological species concept is dated back to the days of Plato and Aristotle. It is called the essentialist concept. According to this concept, the variation is led by the imperfect manifestation of the traits of the species (Mayr, 16). The morphological features similarity is not a clear proof of belonging to the same species. The speciation has the aspect of genetic material evolution, the behavioral development, and the morphological advancement. In the concept of essentiality, the philosophy views species as the natural kinds embedded with essences. The philosophers view species concept as a type of essentialism with a given number of tenets. One tenet has either all or one of the members of the same kind having the common essence. The organism must be a part of the species evolving. For two organism to belong to the same species, they must belong to the same spatiotemporally continuous lineage.

The similarity in morphology and genetic composition is not a guarantee that they belong to the same species.
The nominalistic concept of species disagrees with the existence of the real universals. The species is viewed as a term which is man-made. The species is seen as an individual in the higher plane. The nominalists think that nature produces only the individuals. The species do not exist. The species was invented by man to have a big number of individuals collectively.
The biological species concept stresses that the individuals of the same species have similarity in the genetic composition. The members of the same species make up one reproductive community. The members of the same species are able to reproduce another species which is fertile. The species should be available in a given place and should be found in the same state or features hundred years to come I a different place. The individuals making the class should be restricted to together for the survival of the species. Thus the individuals making the classes can only exist in space-time region (Mayr, 18).An organism is perceived to belong to particular species if it is connected to the members of that species
The three theories on the species concept bring the confusion. The distinction between the species category and the species taxa has not been clearly given by many authors. The taxa refer to the specific organisms. The taxon must be well designated to make particular individuals formally recognized. The category explains the aspect of rank or the hierarchy. Thus the two terms are different. The assignment of the taxa to particular category consists of the appropriate ranking of the species (Mayr, 20). The high taxa of the species are defined by the intrinsic features. For examples fish are class of finned vertebrates. Any of the species with fins fit in the class fish. However, this is not relevant because the species should not be defined by their intrinsic features but by the relational features.
There are difficulties in the assignment of the population to the correct rank. Most of the challenges are due to the lack of enough morphological information and the variability of the population involved. The species consist of aggregate populations with various local populations which share the gene compositions. The situations which cause the difficulties include the following:
The evolutionary continuity in time and space
The reconstruction of the genotype in an isolated population
Morphological divergence
The reproductive isolation which is dependent on habitat isolation
Incomplete isolation mechanisms
The concept of species is applied in the morphological and the genetic analysis. The similarity in the traits shows that the individuals belonging to the same species or group. The philosophy studies the behavioral characteristics of the species depending on the ecosystem.
Work Cited
Mayr, Ernst. Populations, species, and evolution; an abridgment of Animal species and evolution. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1970. Print.