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What is a Species? Nobody Knows! | Clint's Reptiles | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: What is a Species? Nobody Knows!
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Video Summary
Summary
Core Theme
The video explores the complex and often elusive definition of a "species," demonstrating through various examples that common definitions, like the biological species concept, fall short when applied to real-world biological diversity, including extinct organisms, asexual lineages, and geographically isolated populations.
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[Music]
well hi there this is a tiger and this
is a tiger and this is a tiger and this
is a tiger and this is a tiger and this
is a tiger and this is a tiger and this
is a tiger and this is not a tiger and
neither is this are all of these the
same species
or many species if there are many
species how many species which ones are
the same and which ones are different
and what is a species anyway that last
question seems like an easy one I think
that if you ask moderately informed
people the majority will tell you that a
species is defined as a group of
organisms that can breed with one
another and produce viable offspring
that themselves can reproduce and this
is a great definition it's
straightforward coherent and intuitive
as always like And subscribe and we hope
soon but wait this tiger the the first
one we saw is a wild tiger from
Southeast Asia and this tiger is a
captive tiger in North America they will
never encounter one another let alone
breed are they the same species or
different species this tiger is extinct
as is this one probably we do have a
whole video about that one but are they
the same species as this tiger or a
different species this is a tiger
whiptail and this closely related lizard
is a New Mexico whiptail it's a female
you can tell that it's a female because
the females have stripes like this one
and the males don't exist that's right
the entire species is female they
reproduce asexually via parthenogenesis
which means that none of them breed with
one another is each
individual therefore a separate species
this is a tiger salamander and this
salamander is an entina and so is this
and so is this and so is this you might
notice that there is some pretty great
variation in inas now here's the crazy
thing tinas live at relatively high
elevations but not extreme elevations as
a result 19 populations are found in the
mountains that encircle California's
Central Valley all together these 19
populations form kind of a horseshoe
around the valley they don't form a
complete circle because the mountains on
one side are just a little bit too tall
for them now here's the thing each
population is capable of breeding and
producing viable offspring that
themselves can reproduce with the
neighboring population so it is possible
for beans from one end of the Horseshoe
to make their way all the way to the
other end of the Horseshoe but
individuals from one end can't reproduce
with individuals from the other end so
are they one species or many species if
many how many and why and this is a lion
it can breed with a tiger and produce a
viable Offspring called a liger or a
taigon depending on who was the lady and
who was the fella well these lion tiger
hybrids are viable and that they can
survive just fine but they're sterile
usually at least males are females can
potentially reproduce with a male lion
or a male tiger so are lions and
tigers the same species or different
species hopefully by now you are no
longer as confident that you know what a
species is as are the moderately
informed and you have entered the
uncomfortably uncertain position of the
highly informed because as comfortable
as it is to divide life into discrete
boxes called species it turns out that
life is an everchanging Continuum and
finding a way to divide continuous data
into discrete categories is not always
easy to do in an objective and intuitive
manner but we're going to try anyway so
now that we've lost all sight of what a
species might
be let's talk about what a species might
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the species concept that we discussed
earlier the top answer in Family Feud is
called the biological species concept
like all species Concepts it has
strengths and weaknesses species
Concepts that have no strengths are
called garbage ideas not species
Concepts and if we had one with no
weaknesses we would call it the species
concept but there are enough weaknesses
with the biological species concept for
us to recognize that it's difficult to
apply objectively in some instances like
with lions and tigers tigers in
different places or with the salamanders
and downright impossible in others like
with fossils and asexual lineages so
while it can work certainly doesn't
always work and that is why it isn't the
species concept so what are the other
ones what are their strengths and
weaknesses let's talk about the most
frequently used species Concepts and if
you still haven't found one that you
like maybe we'll revisit this topic in
the future and let's start with another
one that is fairly straightforward the
morphological species concept do you
remember that fossil tiger well if you
do you might recall that I have no idea
if it could breed with any of the other
Tigers the lion the Jaguar or anything
else alive today heck I wouldn't even
know if two identical fossil tigers
found at the same place at the same time
with a bunch of babies could breed with
one another I could find two skeletons
in the act of mating and I wouldn't know
if they were able to produce viable
fertile offspring but I could carefully
study their skeletons and determine if
there are significant differences
between them are their skeletons
significantly different from those of
modern tigers or any other living
organism if they aren't meaningfully
different I can conclude that they're
the same species based upon the
morphological species concept that two
organisms are the same species if they
share many unique features and do not
differ significantly from one another
and this species concept has many
strengths it's broadly applicable much
more broadly applicable even than the
biological species concept I don't need
to know anything about reproduction it
works on asexual lineages extinct
organisms really anything I can observe
alive or dead it's basically the gold
standard of paleontology where
morphological features may be all that
we have and yet it's just about as
intuitive as the biological species concept
concept
but it isn't the species concept it has
many shortcomings for example look at
these two gorillas they have many
similarities but they aren't identical
so how different is two different seems
pretty subjective I mean who's making
making that call would you agree with
their standard and if the two
morphologies are significantly different
what's causing that difference these two
grasshoppers are the same species but
they don't look the same and why do they
not look the same because one of them
grew up in close proximity to other
Grasshoppers and the other did not these
grasshoppers have little hairs that if
bumped above a certain frequency caused
them to mol into longdistance flying
locusts instead of a grasshopper that
tends to stay prettyy much in one place
they will differ in coloration Wing
shape and size muscle composition fat
storage as well as Behavior but not
because their genes are different but
because their environment was different
triggering a different set of genes to
be activated this is called phenotypic
plasticity two grasshoppers with the
same genetics can develop to totally
different morphologies and their
morphology will not play a significant
role in determining which morphology
their offspring present and don't get me
started on green anacondas as we will
discuss next week in our featurelength
documentary about all of the boa species
we just discovered a new species of
green anaconda but the reason that we
didn't realized that there were two
species of green anacondas sooner was because
because
morphologically the two species are
nearly identical it wasn't Until We
examined their DNA that we learned that
the two species are reproductive
isolated from one another and highly
different genetically but
morphologically that's not the case
these two butterflies look identical too
they live in the same place but they
never mate why because under ultraviolet
light they look nothing alike and the
butterflies can see that but it took us
centuries to notice other nearly
identical organisms may not mate because
they use different pheromones or calls
or other things that are difficult or
impossible to observe morphologically
not to mention convergent evolution
where two highly unrelated organisms may
end up with a nearly identical
morphology and gosh look at these two
animals one is twice the size of the
other with a very different skull
morphology but they're both gorillas
just different Sexes this is called
sexual dimorphism which by the
morphological species concept could
easily cause us to assign each sex
erroneously to a different species so
it's not perfect okay I'm going to
preface this next one by telling you
that my Master's research was in
evolutionary ecology so I'm a published
ecologist but the ecological species
concept is in my opinion the most
garbage of the four most widely used
species Concepts I should also tell you
that ecology meetings make me question
my reason for being and evolution
meetings remind me exactly why I love
biology so much but the ecological
species concept considers organisms to
be the same species if they utilize the
same basic set of resources in the
environment the same ecological niche
which is historically the only correct
pronunciation of the word niche in
English and it's certainly a correct
English pronunciation today but the
ecological species concept defines a
species essentially by its Niche and the
adaptations that it has to utilize those
resources which is really about all that
keeps the II from being a woodpecker
according to the ecological species
concept and it also kind of plays into
this stereotype about ecologists that if
you go on a walk with an ecologist and
point to a plant and ask what it is
they'll say looks like a C4 grass
ecologists don't care what an organism
is they just care what it does in the
environment they don't care that new
world and old world vultures are not
closely related they perform the same
basic function in the environment so
they're the same thing and if an
organism's place in the Ecology of a
region is all that you care to know
about it then the ecological species
concept works just fine it works for any
organism about which you have
considerable ecological data but if you
care about almost anything else then
you're going to need a different species
concept not to mention other weaknesses
such as the fact that no two niches are
exactly the same and how similar is
similar enough what if the environment
changes and their Niche with it what
about generalists that lack a highly
specialized Niche what if you don't know
too much about its exact Niche and more
there's more but right now I want to
talk about my personal favorite species
concept and don't act too surprised the
philogenetic species concept because I
think that when we're talking about a
species we're talking about a group of
organisms with a unique recent
evolutionary history and philogenetic
Analysis unlike ecological analysis
teaches us a tremendous amount about
organisms that we didn't know when we
classified them it is Mass massively
predictive unlike basically all other
organizational systems that we have ever
devised for organisms for example I
could find an organism that has never
been seen by anyone before if I had
nothing but a genetic sample I could
determine its likely location in the
philogyny of living organisms it could
even be the case that I've never even
seen this organism myself and I have no
preconceived notions about what it is
like what it looks like or how it acts
but now all of a sudden because of phog
gentics I know that it's more closely
related to will than it is to Jason
knowing nothing more than that about it
but given what you know about Will and
Jason and their position in the
philogyny of life I bet that you can
make all sorts of accurate predictions
about this previously unknown organism
so philogenetic analysis rocks but how
do I use it to Define a species well in
a nutshell a philogenetic species is a
group of organisms that share unique
common ancestry and are genetically
similar within predetermined thresholds
as to insinuate recent if not current
gene flow is occurring within the group
but not with other groups basically each
tip of a philogyny is a unique species
at least if you include all of their
close relatives on that philogyny now if
you ask me the biggest downside to the
philogenetic species concept is simply
that philogyny is somewhat foreign to
most people the same people that
understand reproductive isolation unique
morphology and ecological niches may not
really understand what phog gentics is
how it works or why it's so powerful of
course my solution to this problem is
just to try my darnest to explain
phylogenetics to the world but it has a
ton of strengths for one thing it can be
applied based on any source of data that
can be used to generate a philogyny this
includes fossils morphology and
molecular analysis and often a
combination of these distinct sources of
data it works for living organisms
extinct organisms sexually reproducing
organisms and asexually reproducing
organisms the horizontal Gene transfer
in bacteria can throw a wrench and
things and it's far more objective and
free of bias than any other species
Concepts that we've discussed as long as
you clearly State your thresholds for
what constitutes a unique species any
researcher can evaluate your data set
and draw the same conclusions it isn't
based on what features the researcher
deems to be important but on actual
evolutionary history and diversification
from other groups because at the end of
the day species are a real thing and
phylogenetics is the best system we've
yet derived from modeling the real
relationships and history of organisms
on this planet that said it isn't
without it shortcomings for one thing it
generally requires large amounts of data
that can be expensive to collect and
difficult to analyze and while it is
super effective for organisms for which
we have extensive morphological and
genetic data it can be much harder to
apply to organisms known only from
limited and often incomplete fossil
evidence and knowing exactly where to
draw the line between species that can
still be difficult it's easy to
oversplit groups or have disagreements
about how much difference is Meaningful and
and
so you may walk away from this video still
still
wondering what's a
species and that's okay cuz nobody
really knows sorry as always like And
subscribe and we to see you real soon
and I just want to say a special thank
you to all of these people a video like
this is one that you know we know is
valuable but may not get that many views
and it's because of these people that we
can make content like this and we'll
continue to do so in the future and if
you want to support more videos of this
nature going forward please consider
checking out our patreon I could find
two skeletons in the act of mating and I
wouldn't know if they were able to
thank you CL
yes these are just the most broadly used
if they come from the same
kind that well that would be a big one
there you go that's uh baraminology is
what that's called baram baramin bman
baraminology and uh I can discuss that
one I understand that way better than
most creationists do okay I really do
like like you know people all the time
are asking for a definition of what a
created kind is I'm glad you asked this
question because this is a this is this
makes your patreon extra's video totally worth
it one day yeah just don't suck it up
too much it'll go straight in your LS
yeah flies out and you then you'll cough
it up and you won't have a meal
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