While describing a new species (in any types of organisms), how much amount of DNA variation should be ascertained so as to describe it as a new species?

Million dollar question. I’m sure this thread won’t devolve into a splitter vs lumper debate.

as @egordon88 hinted at, the answer is hotly debated between scientists, and between taxonomists in particular. in ye olden times, genetics were not a factor at all, and many of those older classifications are preserved today despite having tenuous genetic reasons. also, you must consider that lif…

As far as I know, species see delimitation is done on whatever basis it’s possible; it could include multiple axes for the purpose of delimitation: molecular divergence, morphology, behaviour, species geographical distribution, reproductive isolation, and so on

And yeah, we consider species as separate, distinct evolutionary lineages, right (atleast therotically) ?

It’s important to remember that all species/species concepts are arguments over delineations of a continuum, and that all species descriptions are hypotheses proposed by the authors, with different lines of evidence – molecular divergence, morphology, behavior, ecological niche, geographic distribut…

The original definer between species was if they appeared physically different to the naked eye. Considering some subspecies are more physically different between each other than entire genera, this informal rule has more or less fallen out of the expectation. I think this is in part why a lot of w…

Description of new species

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Description of new species

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