How to fail at species delimitation.
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Researchers should apply a wide range of species delimitation analyses to their data and place their trust in delimitations that are congruent across methods, for in most contexts it is better to fail to delimit species than it is to falsely delimit entities that do not represent actual evolutionary lineages.Abstract:
Species delimitation is the act of identifying species-level biological diversity. In recent years, the field has witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of methods available for delimiting species. However, most recent investigations only utilize a handful (i.e. 2–3) of the available methods, often for unstated reasons. Because the parameter space that is potentially relevant to species delimitation far exceeds the parameterization of any existing method, a given method necessarily makes a number of simplifying assumptions, any one of which could be violated in a particular system. We suggest that researchers should apply a wide range of species delimitation analyses to their data and place their trust in delimitations that are congruent across methods. Incongruence across the results from different methods is evidence of either a difference in the power to detect cryptic lineages across one or more of the approaches used to delimit species and could indicate that assumptions of one or more of the methods have been violated. In either case, the inferences drawn from species delimitation studies should be conservative, for in most contexts it is better to fail to delimit species than it is to falsely delimit entities that do not represent actual evolutionary lineages.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
DNA-based approaches uncover cryptic diversity in the European Lepidocyrtus lanuginosus species group (Collembola: Entomobryidae)
TL;DR: The results suggest that wide geographic sampling combined with molecular phylogenetic approaches is needed to delimit species and to understand the full range of cryptic diversity in Collembola.
Journal ArticleDOI
Systematics, biogeography and evolution of the Saharo-Arabian naked-toed geckos genus Tropiocolotes.
Luis Machado,Luis Machado,Daniele Salvi,Daniele Salvi,D. James Harris,José Carlos Brito,Pierre-André Crochet,Philippe Geniez,Faraham Ahmadzadeh,Salvador Carranza +9 more
TL;DR: The systematics, biogeography and evolution of the genus Tropiocolotes, a group of small ground-dwelling geckos, comprised of 12 species distributed from the Atlantic coast of North Africa to southwestern Iran, are investigated, finding the existence of high levels of undescribed diversity.
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Phylum Nematoda: trends in species descriptions, the documentation of diversity, systematics, and the species concept.
TL;DR: The trends in nematodes can be compared with developments in the systematics of other organisms to shed light on many of the general issues confronting systematists now and into the future.
References
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TL;DR: The second edition of this book is unique in that it focuses on methods for making formal statistical inference from all the models in an a priori set (Multi-Model Inference).
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TL;DR: This chapter discusses the history and Purview of Phylogeography, Genealogical Concordance, and Speciation Processes and Extended Genealogy Works and its applications to Speciation and Beyond.
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TL;DR: A man is unworthy of the name of a man of science who, whatever may be his special branch of study, has not materially altered his views on some important points within the last twelve years.