title: The evolutionary reality of species and higher taxa in plants: a survey of post-modern opinion and evidence.
abstract: Species are normally considered to be the fundamental unit for understanding the evolution of biodiversity. Yet, in a survey of botanists in 1940, twice as many felt that plant genera were more natural units than plant species. Revisiting the survey, we found more people now regarded species as a more evolutionarily real unit, but a sizeable number still felt that genera were more evolutionarily real than species. Definitions of 'evolutionarily real' split into those based on shared evolutionary history and those based on shared evolutionary fate via ongoing evolutionary processes. We discuss recent work testing for shared evolutionary fate at the species and higher levels and present preliminary evidence for evolutionarily significant higher taxa in plants.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Berkshire, SL5 7PY, UK.
authors.forename: Timothy G
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Barraclough
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Berkshire, SL5 7PY, UK.|Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 10691, Sweden.
authors.forename: Aelys M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Humphreys
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics*; D013045:Species Specificity; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: evolutionary fate; higher taxa; independent limitation; land plants; species; survey