Biological science uses multiple species concepts. Order can be brought to this diversity if we recognize two key features. First, any given species concept is likely to have a patchwork structure, generated by repeated application of the concept to new domains. We illustrate this by showing how two species concepts (biological and ecological) have been modified from their initial eukaryotic applications to apply to prokaryotes. Second, both within and between patches, distinct species concepts may interact and hybridize. We thus defend a semantic picture of the species concept as a collection of interacting patchwork structures. Thus, although not all uses of the term pick out the same kind of unit in nature, the diversity of uses reflects something more than mere polysemy. We suggest that the emphasis on the use of species to pick out natural units is itself problematic, because that is not the term’s sole function. In particular, species concepts are used to manage inquiry into processes of speciation, even when these processes do not produce clearly delimited species.

生物科学使用多个物种的概念。如果我们认识到两个关键特征，就可以为这种多样性带来秩序。首先，任何给定的物种概念都可能具有拼凑结构，这是通过将该概念重复应用于新领域而产生的。我们通过展示两个物种概念（生物和生态）如何从它们最初的真核应用中修改以应用于原核生物来说明这一点。其次，在斑块内和斑块之间，不同的物种概念可能相互作用和杂交。因此，我们将物种概念的语义图像捍卫为相互作用的拼凑结构的集合。因此，尽管该术语的所有用法在自然界中并非都挑选出同一种单位，但用途的多样性反映的不仅仅是多义词。我们认为强调使用物种来挑选自然单位本身就是有问题的，因为这不是该术语的唯一功能。特别是，物种概念用于管理对物种形成过程的调查，即使这些过程不会产生明确界定的物种。