Abstract
I suggest a common population genetic mechanism that explains persistence of biological species as consistently reproducing groups of similar organisms: genetic renewal due to genetic drift or selection, which restricts genetic diversity of populations. In contrast to concepts explaining species integrity via interbreeding, the concept of drift- and selection-induced genetic renewal explains species existence not only for sexually reproducing organisms, but also for asexual, or agamous, organisms. I redefine concepts of population, isolation and species in terms of genetic renewal. The proposed concept of renewing species develops Alan Templeton’s cohesion species concept.
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Notes
For simplicity, in this example with mtDNA, I don’t consider interspecific mtDNA introgression. We will take a look at what happens in case of such introgression and, in general, in case of lateral gene transfer (LGT), in the end of the article.
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Pshenichnov, A. The Renewing Species. A Common Population-Genetic Explanation of Species Phenomena for Sexual and Asexual Organisms. Biol Bull Rev 9, 385–392 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079086419050074
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079086419050074