Can we invent new species thru domestication?

[jdmore]

@dlevitis

a definition that isn’t operational, meaning that we can’t actually use it for anything

@dlevitis

A species is whatever one feels like it is at that moment.

Not trying or expecting to change anyone’s perspective here, and I won’t belabor the issue further in this topic. I’ll just note that the General Lineage Concept refutes both of these assertions in pretty compelling terms.

[professor_porcupine]

@dlevitis

We want every living thing to fit into a species, and there is no possible single definition of species that can achieve that given the diversity of evolutionary process.

I see, so it really is a case by case kind of thing. Species mean different things in different plant families due to the way we boxed each taxon?

What about Horizontal Gene flow? Lots of plants graft into each other & can transfer genes horizontally. Russian Plant Breeder was able to exploit this technique to get Graft Induced Variations. He took a very wide hybrid seedling scion & grafted it onto a mature tree he wanted it to resemble. The seeds inside the scion grew into trees that resembled the mature mentor tree rootstock it was grafted onto.

@dlevitis

Just remember, whatever nomenclature you land on, someone will revise it.

Thanks for the tip, will keep it mind!

@dlevitis

There is literally no firm limit on what we will call a species except that you (usually) have to get a journal editor and a few peer reviewers to go along. So all @professor_porcupine has to do to invent a new species thru domestication is come up with a name and successfully publish it.

That’s EPIC!!! Thank you for the motivation! Problem is do I put an x infront of it or not? Or is it up to me to come up with a name & then let others revise?

Also would the new species I invent be native to where It was created? I mean it’s origin point would be my garden no? Thus it would be native. Native = Origin right?
Evolutionarly speaking, every species originated from plants that may or may have not had their ancestors native to that region. Is Native just as hard to box in as the term species?
I’ve always understand a plant to be Native to the place it originated from.

Would this make the Zuchinni Native to Italy, not the species but specifically the Cultivar Group Cucurbita pepo var. cylindrica?

Or is Native too subjective to be useful? Since any species can eventually evolve to be native to any location it’s currently growing in. It’s how the Native Species got here in the first place.

[dlevitis]

@professor_porcupine

Also would the new species I invent be native to where It was created?

Native is usually applied to naturally occurring taxa that have had a chance to co-evolve with other native organisms in that area. Anything artificially created and then releases into the wild is most often considered non-native. But as you suggest, once one looks closely at the edge cases for native, you again end up in a semantic wallow. If two species, both native, hybridize in a garden within their native range (and spread from there), and the only human interference was planting them next to each other in the hope they might hybridize, is the result a native? Opinions will vary. The simplest solution is to not worry about the label.

[jnstuart]

In the example I gave above, with lab-generated hybrid whiptail species, there is no type locality included in the species descriptions. They were produced in a lab in Missouri but the parental lizards came from the SW US.

[sedgequeen]

Here in North America, we use a practical definition of native. If the species was here before 1492, it’s native. Otherwise, it’s not.

Interesting exception: Three Eurasian species of Tragopogon have been introduced to North America, where they are weeds. They are diploid (2n = 12) Tthey occasionally hybridize in the wild, in Eurasia and North America. In North America (but not Eurasia), two of the tetraploid hybrids (2n = 24) have become weedy, sexually reproducing species. They are considered native to North America. This is technically correct, though it feels wrong to me.

Here’s one of the tetraploid, North American “natives,” Tragopogon mirus: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/79330212 One of its parents has purple petals and one has yellow.