ArticleNational science review2020
Genes and speciation: is it time to abandon the biological species concept?
Article in National science review, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed.
- The genetic origins of species boundaries at subtropical and temperate ecoregions in the North American racers (Coluber constrictor).Heredity · 2025Article
- Cryptic species conservation: a review.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Contact zone of slow wormsPeerJ · 2025Article
- Morphological differences in populations of Jacobaea erucifolia: Genetic differentiation, phenotypic plasticity or ecotypes?PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
- What are species and how are they formed?National science review · 2022Article
- Six steps for building a technological knowledge base for future taxonomic work.National science review · 2022Article
- Extensive gene flow in secondary sympatry after allopatric speciation.National science review · 2022Article
- Path probability selection in nature and path integral.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- A single-nucleus transcriptomic atlas of the dog hippocampus reveals the potential relationship between specific cell types and domestication.National science review · 2022Article
- Rapid divergence of a gamete recognition gene promoted macroevolution of Eutheria.Genome biology · 2022Article
- Empirical and philosophical problems with the subspecies rank.Ecology and evolution · 2022Review
- Deep Ancestral Introgression Shapes Evolutionary History of Dragonflies and Damselflies.Systematic biology · 2022Article
- Phylogeny and Cryptic Diversity ofBiology · 2022Article
- Influence of Pliocene and Pleistocene climates on hybridization patterns between two closely related oak species in China.Annals of botany · 2022Article
- Does the Pachytene Checkpoint, a Feature of Meiosis, Filter Out Mistakes in Double-Strand DNA Break Repair and as a side-Effect Strongly Promote Adaptive Speciation?Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2022Article
- An integrative genomic and phenomic analysis to investigate the nature of plant species in Escallonia (Escalloniaceae).Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Replies to the commentaries on the question of 'Is it time to abandon the biological species concept?'National science review · 2020Article
- Alternative views of biological species: reproductively isolated units or genotypic clusters?National science review · 2020Article
- While neither universally applicable nor practical operationally, the biological species concept continues to offer a compelling framework for studying species and speciation.National science review · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The biological species concept (BSC) is the cornerstone of neo-Darwinian thinking. In BSC, species do not exchange genes either during or after speciation. However, as gene flow during speciation is increasingly being reported in a substantial literature, it seems time to reassess the revered, but often doubted, BSC. Contrary to the common perception, BSC should expect substantial gene flow at the onset of speciation, not least because geographical isolation develops gradually. Although BSC does not stipulate how speciation begins, it does require a sustained period of isolation for speciation to complete its course. Evidence against BSC must demonstrate that the observed gene flow does not merely occur at the onset of speciation but continues until its completion. Importantly, recent genomic analyses cannot reject this more realistic version of BSC, although future analyses may still prove it wrong. The ultimate acceptance or rejection of BSC is not merely about a historical debate; rather, it is about the fundamental nature of species - are species (and, hence, divergent adaptations) driven by a relatively small number of genes, or by thousands of them? Many levels of biology, ranging from taxonomy to biodiversity, depend on this resolution.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.