My person:

I am an evolutionary biologist with an interest in molecular biology & genetics and zoology. My research focused on "Molecular Drive" which is the third evolutionary force besides random genetic drift and selection. My research studied transposable elements and DNA repair at various institutions such as the University of Münster (Germany), the Radboud-University Nijmegen (Netherlands), The Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, USA), the University of Wisconsin at Madison (USA), the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) at Heidelberg (Germany) and the University of Heidelberg (Germany). I am author and editor of a couple of scientific books with one of them dealing with the "Origins of Life".

(see: www.flickr.com/photos/143115576@N02/collections/721576989...)

Current and long-standing interest: The Mayr-Tension discrepancy of speciation and biodiversity.

Current Result: The Speciation-Triangle and Eidolonic-Species.

Project:

"Taxa-Exploration" - Towards a "Frame of Reference for Biodiversity and biomedical Research"-.

The epistemological challenge: "introgression": where significant introgression is possible only in metapopulations but NOT between Wallace-Darwinian species.

Goal:

In Biodiversity-Research, the term 'species' should ideally be defined with the same precision as the term 'atom' in physics and applied chemistry . In fact - the 'species' is a steady state in game theory corresponding to a pure-strategy Nash equilibrium (Nash 1951). Maynard Smith (1982) extended the idea of pure and mixed Nash equilibria to define the term 'gene' as well. He coined the term 'evolutionary stable strategy', ESS. The speciation triangle used by me (see below) is a pre-Nash period or a Schrödinger's box in which the state of a stable Nash equilibrium has not been reached. I call it an 'eidolonic species'. Often, species complexes belong to this unstable kind of pre-Nash equilibrium. (Kauffman, S. A. 1993. The origins of order: self organization and selection in evolution. Oxford University Press, New York.) A famous example is the hominid complex of Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo sapiens denisovensis and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The stable pure-strategy Nash-equilibrium of a species I call a 'Wallace-Darwinian' species - it is equivalent to Mayr's biological species definition without the word 'potential' in it. An eidolonic species or species-complex, cryptic species and ring-species etc. does contain the word 'potential'.

 

"Groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups" (Mayr, E. 1940, Speciation phenomena in birds, Amer. Nat. 74: 249-278.)

 

The introduction of the term 'eidolonic species' establishes clarity of what is meant by "distant-species hybridization" or "introgression" (1. Evgen'ev, M., and S. Funikov. 2025. Consequences of Distant Hybridization in Animals. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 2. Kauffman, S. A. 1993. The origins of order: self organization and selection in evolution. Oxford University Press, New York.)

  

Without a fixed frame of reference, terms like "introgression" and "hybridization" risk degenerating into semantic noise. A clear distinction between eidolonic species (as theoretical constructs, see blow) and Mayr's biological species (as evolutionary units in metazoans, plants, fungi) provides the conceptual clarity needed to bridge theory and empirical reality.

My current and long-standing interest: The Mayr-Tension discrepancy of speciation.

 

Result: The Speciation-Triangle, Eidolonic-Species and metapopulations:

 

"Specific Interest on Flickr:

Biodiversity" with a focus on wild bees, Carabid beetles and arthropods in general - plant species as the beneficiaries of pollinators. A photo collection of Wallace-Darwinian Species, eidolonic species, Life and Evolution in geographic settings / species names are based on CoL: www.catalogueoflife.org/annual-checklist/2019

2023 we started to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor trained bird-soundscapes. Insect related AI soundsapes are technically under development.

 

A central insight into the reality of our planetary life is formulated by Stephen Hubbel 2001 (cited by Menno Schilthuizen: The Loom of Life, 2008):

"The science of biodiversity is not much further along than medicine was in the Middle Ages. We are still at the stage, as it were, of cutting open bodies to find out what organs are inside."

 

- I am interested in model taxons, especially animals, insects, fossils and everything that leads to a deeper, fundamental understanding of the evolution of life and biodiversity. One of my aims is to emphasize the diversity of species and to enhance public respect and awareness as to the reality of biological, wallace-darwinian species. Here, next to few other aspects of biodiversity and evolution, my photographs focus on wild bees and other Hymenoptera . Alpine / arctic topics put the biodiversity into a biogeographic = chorologic perspective.

 

A connection to climate change and insect photography is presented here:

www.flickr.com/photos/143115576@N02/49366086078/in/album-...

 

The most pressing problem of our planet that requires to be reversed is the "shifting baseline syndrome".

I thank David Attenborough for his kick on this. (Ref.: Soga, M., and K. J. Gaston. 2018. Shifting baseline syndrome: causes, consequences, and implications. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 16:222-230.)

 

(#Elon Musk, I admire and appreciate your SpaceX work! - But please, look up, and help to turn arround the "shifting base line syndrome" most certainly destroying THIS and OUR´s planet´s biodiversity and any space programs in real time! Support us!).

 

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Why Mayr's biological species concept is important and makes most sense - even today:

Quote from:

- Mayr, E. 1963. Animal species and evolution. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

- Mayr, E. 1967. Artbegriff und Evolution. Verlag Paul Parey, Hamburg, Berlin.

 

"The non-dimensional species concept. It is based on the relationship between two naturally co-occurring populations within a non-dimensional system, i.e., at a single locality and at the same time (sympatrically and synchronously). This is the species concept used by field zoologists (Mayr 1946). When such a zoologist studies the [fauna] in the surroundings of their hometown, they find each species clearly defined and sharply separated from all others."

(Nowadays, modern urban taxonomy—for example, as practiced by TaxonExpeditions—explicitly seeks to detect sympatric speciation in urban settings, which does not contradict Mayr’s framework.)

  

Indigenous people sometimes have a keener eye for such distinctions than modern, civilized people. "Some thirty years ago, I spent a few months with a tribe of superb woodsmen and hunters in the Arfak Mountains of New Guinea. They had 136 different vernacular names for 137 species of birds that occurred in the area, confusing only two species. It is not, of course, pure coincidence that these primitive woodsmen arrive at the same conclusion as the museum taxonomists, but an indication that both groups of observers deal with the same, non-arbitrary discontinuities of nature."

 

[Analogous to the gene concept, the species concept is likely underpinned by a stable, natural Nash equilibrium in the mathematical sense—see the lecture on biodiversity by Lankenau, Studienstiftung Autumn Academy 2022, Heidelberg.

Stuart Kauffman describes the importance of Nash-equilibria, prior-Nash-stabilities and game theory for understanding ecosystems and species:

Kauffman, S. A. 1993. The origins of order: self organization and selection in evolution. Oxford University Press, New York.

 

Mayr: "This striking discontinuity between sympatric populations is the basis of the species concept in biology.

My addition: Today, in contrast to Ernst Mayr’s earlier perspective, we now understand that sympatric speciation is a common phenomenon in both natural wilderness and urban habitats. - Nevertheless, there is no reason to underestimate the epistemiological strength of the biological species term.

 

Species Definition

 

DEFINITION of DARWINIAN-SEXUAL SPECIES - THE BIOLOGICAL SPECIES CONCEPT:

 

"Groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups"

(Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the origin of species from the viewpoint of a zoologist. Columbia University Press, New York.)

 

Mayr adds in his German text from 1960 to his text Dobzhansky's definition that adds sexuality:

Dobzhansky, 1950: "Arten sind die größte und umfassendste Fortpflanzungsgemeinschaft von sexuellen und kreuzungsbefruchtenden Individuen, die zu einem gemeinsamen „Genpool“ gehören."

  

I regard the "Biological-Species-Concept" (BSC) or "Darwinian-Species" the only solid foundation of complex metazoan life. Based on Ernst Mayr´s terms, it is the only, theoretically well founded concept of definitions of organismic "species" that stands equal to fundamental categories such as the "atom", an "element" or a "mineral-species" in physics and chemistry. This species concept unites all complex forms of bi-sexual organismic life that is characterized by a Weissmann-germline (i.e. founders of all stem cells). Only this strict definition facilitates a cladistic (dichotomous) tree of metazoans who fundamentally represent this green and blue planet Earth. Its origin lies within the origin of life itself from a common ancestor - the "protoribosome".

 

DEFINITION of SPECIATION in accordance with Mayr's Biological Species Concept

 

Speciation process as defined by Menno Schilthuizen 2001 [revised]:

 

"Speciation is initiated when the balance between natural selection and gene exchange is punctuated. When there is a lot of gene exchange (sympatric speciation), strong natural selection is required (disruptive selection). When there is little gene exchange (allopatric speciation), natural selection doesn't have to be drastic (although it wouldn't hurt if it were). - Once initiated, speciation will reinforce itself with the help of sexual selection. Neuronal processes can be essential in this process. - When homologous chromosomes become too different to allow for meiosis, speciation is sharply completed in molecular terms." (Lankenau, Spiekeroog, 2023)

 

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Yes.... to all biologists, morphologists, faunistic photographers, naturalists, taxonomists who criticise the biological species concept: Cryptic Species are real Wallace-Darwinian species! (Even if we find it desturbing when by endopolyploidy multiple cryptic species can emerge sympatrically ..... )

and

No..... to all physicists, biochemists, microbiologists and molecular biologists: bacteria, archaea, viruses are not to be termed biological species. They rather fall into clades of relationship by descent, but not biological/Darwinian species. Therefore, "the line must be drawn here!" .... The biological species as a real entity is the substance, on which Charles Darwin wrote his second-most important book - dealing with the outcome of the unique, highest transition-level of life´s complexity: "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex". Introgression exists only between subspecies (see below) but not between hard-defined biological species. (in butterflies e.g. they represent roughly 80% of the species). Transposon- and Virus-Introgression is another kind of horizontal transfer of "mobile DNA/RNA". Horizontal, mobile-element invasions, e.g. can trigger an instability of a biological species and can trigger the state of an eidolonic-species. This would be a punctuated equilibrium triggering and processes characteristic of speciation triangles (encompassing "eidolonic-species"), infections and molecular drive.

 

I therefore, have to add a balanced, neutral definition, joining molecular, bottom-to-top worlds with floristic/faunistic top-to-bottom worlds:

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Eidolon (gr. shadow, figure, phantom / Schattenbild, Abbild, Trugbild, Phantom).

 

I suggest the term eidolonic-species: including 20% of all metazoan species (including all OTUs, morphospecies etc.).

 

The Russian population geneticist Alexander S. Serebrovski (1935) formulated a comprehensive framework of reproductive barriers that must be overcome for hybridization to succeed – both in nature and under artificial conditions. These include:

(1) spatial and ecological separation,

(2) behavioral and morphological incompatibilities during mating,

(3) gametic incompatibilities,

(4) embryonic lethality, and

(5) hatching or birth difficulties of hybrids.

see:

1. Evgen'ev, M., and S. Funikov. 2025. Consequences of Distant Hybridization in Animals. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Ernst Mayr listed a similar list of species barriers

2. Mayr, E. 1963. Animal species and evolution. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge.

 

Within this framework, eidolonic-species represent a dynamic transitional state in which some of these barriers are still incomplete or only partially stabilized.

Crucially, the molecular compatibility at the level of meiosis—i.e., successful pairing, recombination, and segregation of homologous chromosomes—is the final determinant of whether speciation has reached completion.

The eidolonic-species thus mark the emergence zone/area of species, where chromosomal architecture, regulatory divergence, and genome dynamics (e.g., transposons, drive, chromatin incompatibilities) actively reshape the evolutionary trajectory. Stephen Goulds and Nils Eldrige puctuated equilibria fit in here. And Hennig's phylogenetic systematics is based on this.

In this sense, the Speciation-triangle/Artbildungsdreieck culminates at the meiotic threshold, beyond which reproductive isolation becomes irreversible and taxonomic recognition as a distinct species is warranted.

 

Artificial fertilization is used today to produce experimental hybrids. Besides few model taxa like Drosophila and yeasts the zebrafish genus Danio is used to experimentally to explore sexual selection. High-end species-hybridization experiments have been carried out by Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard's Lab and colleagues with Danio sp. "species". Genes could be identified responsible for stripe patterning. The parent species Danio rerio and Danio aesculapii are NOT eidolonic species - in nature as well as in fishtanks they do not produce hybrids. But the artificial hybrids are viable like mules are crossing horses and donkeys.

see YouTube presentation: www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3uOtjcW_MI&t=1954s

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Removed link from the internet - pdf only available from my archive:

Author n.n. 2021. Hexaploid terminology, The Free encyclopedia. AISHOUZUO.ORG.

 

Related eferences:

1. Fawcett, J. A., S. Maere, and Y. Van De Peer. 2009. Plants with double genomes might have had a better chance to survive the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:5737-5742.

2. Kuhl, H., K. Du, M. Schartl, L. Kalous, M. Stöck, and D. K. Lamatsch. 2022. Equilibrated evolution of the mixed auto-/allopolyploid haplotype-resolved genome of the invasive hexaploid Prussian carp. Nature Communications 13:4092.

1. Dedukh, D., J. Litvinchuk, A. Svinin, S. Litvinchuk, J. Rosanov, and A. Krasikova. 2019. Variation in hybridogenetic hybrid emergence between populations of water frogs from the Pelophylax esculentus complex. PloS one 14:e0224759.

 

Reference suggesting that introgression "is possible" between "species". This reference, however, avoids a hard definition of the term "Wallace-Darwinian species":

--> Evgen'ev, M., and S. Funikov. 2025. Consequences of Distant Hybridization in Animals. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

In my oppinion, species must be defined in a hard core scientific manner (such as "life", "gene" and "atom") - and then we decide if introgression is possible, in a manner, not defying the definition. Otherwise it is semantic fuzziness.

--> Pääbo, S. 2015. The contribution of ancient hominin genomes from Siberia to our understanding of human evolution. Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences 85:392-396.

--> Pääbo, S. 2015. The diverse origins of the human gene pool. Nature Reviews Genetics 16:313-314.

 

When we talk about "Loss of species" on this planet, intuitively, the category of Darwinian-species is the most sustainable definition, and is most unlikely to be undermined by political, and non-scientific interests.

 

However, in order to cope with life´s extraordinary complexity there are practical reasons to accept and establish other "working-concepts of species" . In science and in public such terms have to be clarified on spot in order to avoid endless political, religious, non-scientific debate.

 

List of subordinate terms of organismic species:

 

- Biological, Wallace-Darwinian, bisexual species concept (species stricto sensu as defined by Ernst Mayr). (~80% of metazoan species).

- Eidolonic-species: distant populations not yet forming a biological species. ( ~20% of all metazoan species are eidolonic-species). [see my suggestion blow].

- Cryptic species

- Cladistic species concept

- Cohesion species concept

- Ecological species concept

- Evolutionary species concept

- Isolation species concept

- Morphological species concept

- Phylogenetic species concept

- Recognition species concept

- Typological species concept

- Genetic species concept

- Genotypic Cluster species concept

- Ring species concept

- Ring of races concept

- Parthenogenetic species concept ("clone species" - see www.flickr.com/photos/143115576@N02/albums/72157714806562802)

- The GAGE species concept (Seifert 2020b): It states that species are separable clusters defined

alone by nuclear genes and/or their expression products. The morphology investigated here is such an expression

product whereas microsatellite markers represent nuclear DNA.

Seifert, B. (2020b) The Gene and Gene Expression (GAGE) Species Concept: An Universal Approach for All Eukaryotic

Organisms. Systematic Biology, 69 (5), 1033–1038.

doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syaa032

 

- Parallel species concept = coind by Dolph Schluter regarding two races of three-spined sticklebacks of coastal Canadian lakes. 1. limnetic subspecies, 2. benthic subspecies. / I currently regard them as populations evolving within a Hennig-speciation triangle (the Eidonia-triangle) | www.flickr.com/photos/143115576@N02/52712973713/ | . Ref.: Schilthuizen, M. 2001. Frogs, flies, and dandelions: Speciation - The Evolution of New Species. Oxford University Press. pp. 148.

 

- Paleontological species concept

- Microbial species concept

- Quasispecies concept (e.g. viral species)

- OTU = Operational Taxonomic Unit / MOTU = Molecular Operational Taxonomic Unit.

(plausible but arbitrarily defined unit of barcode sequences, i.e. 18s rDNA, COI - equivalent to a real biological species. Outcome of metabarcoding.)

- Incipient species = a natural population that is more or less interfertile with another related population but is inhibited from interbreeding in nature by some specific barrier. (Definition according to Merriam Webster).

- Cryptic species (definition: one of two or more morphologically indistinguishable biological groups that are incapable of interbreeding).

 

A fuzzy term is the (kind of political) term ʻDark taxaʼ:

For example, it has been described by Moser et al. as: >> "Dark taxa" are a taxonomic phenomenon in which taxa cannot be identified to any known species either due to a lack of means for identifi cation or because they are not formally described. This phenomenon can manifest itself through biological hurdles, such as a resistance to DNA barcoding, or unconventional morphological characters being necessary for identifi cation; as well as historically, with literature being scarce and disjointed making entry into research on the group steep. - dark taxa has been contrasted to the non-fuzzy term "cryptic species": This is in contrast to ʻcryptic speciesʼ, which is a biological concept. It is defi ned as morphologically indistinguishable taxa that are or have been classifi ed as a single species (Bickford et al. 2007). Unresolved cryptic species complexes can aggravate the study of dark taxa. However, it is a common misconception that the challenge of dark taxa taxonomy lies solely in unravelling the multitude of cryptic species complexes found within these taxa. Whilst dark taxa are usually vastly understudied, cryptic species are found in all major biogeographical regions and taxonomic groups and have received considerable attention (Pfenninger & Schwenk 2007). << cited from Ref: Moser, M., J. M. Ulmer, T. van de Kamp, C. Vasilița, M. Renninger, I. Mikó, and L. Krogmann. 2023. Surprising morphological diversity in ceraphronid wasps revealed by a distinctive new species of Aphanogmus (Hymenoptera: Ceraphronoidea). European Journal of Taxonomy 864:146-166.

 

There are also recognized abiotic species such as:

- 118 chemical elements (Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev´s periodic table of chemical elements).

- 5500 minerals (www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-_PSizooDk)

1. Hazen, R. M. 2008. Mineral evolution. Am Mineral 93:1693-1720.

 

Richard Dawkins calls my point of view that of a "punctuationist". And Dawkins criticizes Niles Eldridge polemically for "treating ´the species´ as a real ´entity´. Although, I admire and highly respect Richard Dawkins for his achievements on evolutionary thought, I strongly disagree with him on this specific aspect. [for reference see: Dawkins, R. 1986. The Blind Watchmaker. Penguin books 1988, London, p. 264].

Dawkin´s view may be due to what David Attenborough calls a "shifting baseline syndrome" in forgetting over generations, how species-rich natural biodiversity in habitats "should be". - This assumption about such a brilliant senior evolutionary biologist as Richard Dawkins certainly is, seems surprizing to me. (contact me if more word is needed.)

 

Further, others criticize Mayr´s biological species concept - but from my point of view one drifts off too often into the fuzziness of non-scientific philosophy. For example, Grimaldi states: in Mayr´s biological species-definition the word " ‘potentially’ was an unfortunate adverb ". [Grimaldi, D., and M. S. Engel. 2005. Evolution of the Insects. Cambridge University Press.]

In my Hennig' ian understanding, the opposite holds true - the formulation "potentially interbreeding" in every respect - molecularly as well as traditionally taxonomic - is a perfectly reasonable deviation from the now popular, beaten track !

The term "potentially" helps to deal with incipient species. And note: the interbreeding and isolation characteristics and the meiotic chromosome-pairing and separation compatibility is measured at the F1 state and not a generation before.

 

Recognizing the three specific evolutionary driving forces (natural selection, random drift, molecular drive) are united in a speciation triangle (the Eidonia-triangle). see the Flickr album on Taxonomy:

 

In a distinguished textbook of Population Genetics it was stated that gene flow can take place between closely related "species prior to the time that reproductive isolation becomes complete".

i.Hartl, D. L., and A. G. Clark. 2018. Principles of population genetics, 4th ed, vol. 116. Sinauer associates Sunderland, MA

Oxford University Press.

The phenomenon is called "introgression". In my understanding this is a violation of causality with regard to the bisexual, biological species concept definition ! Introgression is an important mechanism where genes flow from one subspecies to another related subspecies. As long as introgression (gene flow) between populations is active reality, the two populations still belong to the same species. Time decides and rules when species status is established. Of course sympatric speciation is possible, e.g. through polyploidization of entire genomes (creating cryptic species). The only genetic exchange (geneflow) and introgression between established species is possible when transposable elements and viruses are integrated into germline genomes. But this process does not interfere with Mayr´s biological species concept. - Nevertheless, current, active evolution or differentiation of new, young species does exist in reality. It needs to be monitored as climate change and urbanization proceeds. It motivates (or at least should encourage) modern taxonomists to apply both classical behavioral, morphological, biochemical, ultrastructural, physiological, and molecular genetic approaches to characterize species in the process of radiation. - These trend-setting approaches are trailblazed by modern taxonomists such as Menno Schilthuizen and Iva Njunjic [ 1.Schilthuizen, M. 2018. Darwin Comes to Town. Quercus Editions Ltd., London. 2. taxonexpeditions.com/] who also tackle the mitochondrial barcoding approaches critically. [1. Freitag, H., et al. and I. Njunjić. 2021. Hydraena (s. str.) dinarica, new species (Coleoptera: Hydraenidae) along with further records of Hydraena spp. from Durmitor National Park, Montenegro and comments on the DNA barcoding problem with the genus. Biodiversity data journal 9:e59892.]

 

Here, Karl Popper´s approach works especially good for the "biological species" concept. For Popper, falsifiability distinguished science from non-science. [Popper, K. R. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery Routledge.] - Because the species-problem is complex, Popper´s deductive method is ideal:

 

Popper´s deductive cycle is a scientific method to focus effort at understanding complex biological problems:

In the same way as Popper´s deductive cycle enables science to conceptionalize Darwinian evolution and the origin of life - the same Popperian deductive cycle conceptionalizes the origin of a Darwinian biological species. Popper´s deductive cycle assumes that science moves from the current reality to the past particulars (organismic top to molecular bottom) and back to the general (molecular bottom to organismic top). In practice this includes species-determination by diagnostic characters (morphological, behavioral etc.) AND molecular analysis (genetic, genomic etc.) in an ever growing, deductive precision cycle - a circling, reductionistic, holistic, never-ending process. (Lankenau, D.-H. 2011. Two RNA Worlds: Toward the Origin of Replication, Genes, Recombination and Repair, p. 225-286. In R. Egel, D.-H. Lankenau, and A. Y. Mulkidjanian (ed.), Origins of Life: The Primal Self-Organization. Springer Verlag, Heidelberg. / www.flickr.com/photos/143115576@N02/43347024945/in/album-...)

 

Seal of quality for Darwinian-Species Designations:

I suggest a "seal of quality" of the species-determination status designated to each individual taken from its population or documented by on site methods (e.g. photography, observation). This is meaningful only for bi-sexual darwinian / biological species (including bi-sexual hermaphrodites).

Preliminary, initial description of rank-categories for darwinian / biological species:

A four-star rank **** is given to an individual unequivocally identified as a member of a Wallace-Darwinian species by all relevant diagnostic characters such as morphological characters, embryonic developmental patterns, interbreeding-genetics, molecular genetics, genomics, metagenomics, mitochondrial-genome bar coding, behavioral patterns, ecological observations and other experimentally confirmed data. Examples are intensely studied, well known and established species such as the model-species Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Nasonia vitripennis, Arabidopsis thaliana, etc.. Also, Homo sapiens is a four-star darwinian species.

Individuals of a species only identified by straight forward diagnostic, morphological characters are typically three-star rank *** darwinian species.

  

...

Zitate / Quotes:

 

"There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."

Charles Darwin

 

darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=508&ite...

  

Dr. Paul Westrich: "Ihre Fotos vermitteln mir einen ganz neuen Eindruck von den Bienen."

 

Sam Droege on what his and my Flickr site is about:

A wonderful description of "Why to take time to work with insects! " is given here on Flickr and on YouTube by

Dr. Sam Droege a goal which also will be attempted on my Flickr site for local European bees and other Wallace-Darwinian species:

"Droege's Lab. designs and develops large scale survey programs for plants and animals. Droege works on design and survey protocols how bees are changing. Development of identification guides. The technical literature is not adequate at present! Collecting bees is easy but what is next to be done? High quality pictures are needed. Museums closing down! High quality pictures would allow everyone to zoom into the details of bristles and morphology structure to identify a bee." www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections/72157664097451...

 

Friedrich I. von Preußen:

"Es ist dem Untertanen untersagt, den Masstab seiner beschränkten Einsicht an die Handlungen der Obrigkeit anzulegen." / "The subject is forbidden to apply the standard of his limited insight to the actions of the authorities"

Heutzutage sind die modernen Autoritäten allerdings nicht der Staat oder Führer eines Landes, sondern die akzeptierten Standards einer "Popper-Zyklus"- getriebenen Naturwissenschaft. / The modern "authorities" however is not the political state nor the leader of a country, but the accepted standards of "Popper-cycle" driven natural Sciences.

 

Stephen P. Hubbell, 2001 cited in "The Loom of Life" by Menno Schilthuizen:

"The science of biodiversity is not much farther along than medicine was in the Middle Ages. We are still at the stage, as it were, of cutting open bodies to find out what organs are inside." (Hubbell, S. P. 2001. The Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity and Biogeography.)

  

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The Earth BioGenome Project is heading towards mapping and characterizing all life.

Reference: Lewin, H. A., G. E. Robinson, W. J. Kress, W. J. Baker, J. Coddington, K. A. Crandall, R. Durbin, S. V. Edwards, F. Forest, and M. T. P. Gilbert. 2018. Earth BioGenome Project: Sequencing life for the future of life. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115:4325-4333.

www.earthbiogenome.org/

 

This Flickr-platform is thought to complement and link molecular worlds of species to the macroscopic photographic views on species.