True species

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poozcard

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Hi everyone,

I again have a question :D
If I have 2 plants, Plant A and Plant B.

1. Plant A

Plant A is a Paph collected from wild.
It looks an ordinary species without any characteristic of neither hybrids nor even natural hybrid at all.
When we do self cross we get some varience within the range that can be accepted as species.

2. Plant B

Plant B is a standard complex Paph. having a standard complex Paph as ancestor.
Plant B's ancestor has been crossed 1,000 times until given birth to Plant B.
When we do sib cross of Plant B with its siblings, all offsprings looks exactly the same, including 1st generation, 2nd generation and 3rd generation.


The question is, which one is more 'True species'? and Why?


:sob::sob::sob::sob:
 
I think by species, we mean natural species, those that have appeared on their own without the intervention of Man. There are also natural hybrids b/w species that are considered as such. It is not a question of looking alike, it's a result of natural selection.
As for complexes that look alike, you could talk of ''species'' resulting from unnatural selection. :)
 
i will preface this with the statement that i understand only a little about genetics
unless the hybrid is stabilize, i do not believe that the offspring and subsequent generations will necessarily look like it.
 
Well the answer is very simple: Plant (b) is definitely not a species because it is a hybrid (any standard complex Paph is).

Plant (a) can be assumed to be a species or a natural hybrid unless it is a man-made hybrid that has been put out in the wild (and that happens more often than one should assume). And you will get some variance when selfing a species of course ... there are many genes involved and in view of Mendel's law of independent assortment ..... (I will explain if you wish).
 
If plant B is a complex hybrid consisting of several species and evolves from many generations, there will be considerable variation in the progeny.
 
i will preface this with the statement that i understand only a little about genetics
unless the hybrid is stabilize, i do not believe that the offspring and subsequent generations will necessarily look like it.

It is possible through careful selective breeding to have all the seedlings from a cross look almost exactly alike. They may or may not look like one of the parents but will look like their siblings.

This process of selective breeding is how they create hybrid food crops like corn. When you buy a packet of corn seed at the nursery and plant it in your garden all the corn ears produced look alike, have the same size and shape, and the plants grow uniform and mature at the same time. But if you save seed from your garden produce and grow it the next year the results are much different and usually not nearly as good.
 
I agree with Lance. If you have selected for certain traits/characteristics over others, this will dramatically reduce the size of the gene pool hence the offspring will look more and more similar (inbreeding). I don't think you can inbreed for thousands of generations though. Inbreeding depression will result and you will have to outcross (cross with other plants from different 'blood lines') eventually. If I'm not mistaken, this happened with albino cattleyas. After 5-6 generations of inbreeding, you can get very beautiful well-shaped flowers of good colour but the plants become very weak and difficult to grow.
 
Thanks everyone for answering. There are so many interesting idea :D

Plant A: to me is some kind like natural species. Evoluation process has been in wild

Plant B: Evolution process is made by human.

It seems like natural made should be considered as the crucial reason of being species. But to my understanding, human made is also a part of nature. Could human made species, having evolution process in Lab (the lab is also a part of nature) be counted too?

Eventhough, the day that someone can make plant B has not arrived yet, but it will come for sure somedays.

:D:D:D
 
It seems like natural made should be considered as the crucial reason of being species. But to my understanding, human made is also a part of nature. Could human made species, having evolution process in Lab (the lab is also a part of nature) be counted too?

Dude, your like getting way too deep for me man.
 
The way I understand your original question, you are asking if a hybrid could be considered a species. I would say no. Yes, there is some variance in species, but a man-made hybrid is a hybrid, and is not a species, no matter how identical the generations are. If it doesn't occur naturally in the wild, it's not a species.
 
It seems like natural made should be considered as the crucial reason of being species. But to my understanding, human made is also a part of nature. Could human made species, having evolution process in Lab (the lab is also a part of nature) be counted too?

How is human made part of nature? Humans cannot create species.
 
How is human made part of nature? Humans cannot create species.

Because, in some senses, we, human ourselves, are also one species.

Human can be a pollinator, which this act, is also a part of natural phoenomenon.
The bees/insects may think that the wild is their own lab while human's lab is their wild.

:rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:

Another case, let's call it Plant C:

Plant C is the natural hybrids may spend 1,000 more years to turn their blood purified. At that time, we may feel more comfortable to call it species.

What if human induce the process faster by multiple crossing with its siblings in the lab? Will Plant C's offsprings can be considered as species someday?

:):):)
 
Dude, your like getting way too deep for me man.

Haha, may i take it as a compliment?

All answers shared here make me very happy.
I think I am learning some nature's secret while reading this topic.
:clap::clap::clap:
 
But if you are doing that, there is no point anymore to keep the term "species" alive ...
 
Because, in some senses, we, human ourselves, are also one species.

Human can be a pollinator, which this act, is also a part of natural phoenomenon.
The bees/insects may think that the wild is their own lab while human's lab is their wild.

:rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:

Another case, let's call it Plant C:

Plant C is the natural hybrids may spend 1,000 more years to turn their blood purified. At that time, we may feel more comfortable to call it species.

What if human induce the process faster by multiple crossing with its siblings in the lab? Will Plant C's offsprings can be considered as species someday?

:):):)
Of course we are a species: it is called Homo sapiens
 
Because, in some senses, we, human ourselves, are also one species.

Human can be a pollinator, which this act, is also a part of natural phoenomenon.
The bees/insects may think that the wild is their own lab while human's lab is their wild.

:rollhappy::rollhappy::rollhappy:

Another case, let's call it Plant C:

Plant C is the natural hybrids may spend 1,000 more years to turn their blood purified. At that time, we may feel more comfortable to call it species.

What if human induce the process faster by multiple crossing with its siblings in the lab? Will Plant C's offsprings can be considered as species someday?

:):):)

Poozcard,I understand your way to see things.I usually say,when starting lectures,that everithing depends on points of view...we can say that humans have made the orchids hybrids...or...that orchids have used humans to make faster their evolution and adapted also to human created environments(and ability of "adapt" is a way to evaluate intelligence in nature).Is always a matter of the eye that looks things...probably an Alien will explain things in a different way we do.
BUT...as we are humans,to classifie and understand things,and use them to comunicate,we have to create a code that is always "antropocentric".
If not antropocentric,also mathematics became a point of view and not a correct science.

I also always say that in the forest there are not nametags :rollhappy:
So a "Species" is something described somewhere that have to have particular
characteristics to be called species.Is not an universal truth but a way we can comunicate an idea eachother for further studies and to leave the knowledge in comprehensible way to our posterity.Is a code,and not a truth.
 
Haha, may i take it as a compliment?
:

Sure, by all means!

A species is just a name. I heard a lecture once about the concept of species that spoke of them as drifting swarms of genetic confluences...but I am paraphrasing this all in a terrible way and losing the elegance of the talk. Suffice it to say that species is definitely a human idea that is of course artificially attached to what we find in the world. Of course genetic engineers speak of creating new life forms through recombinant DNA research, so I don't know, but are those new "species" or just freaks? Yes, yes, their survivability outside a human controlled system is unlikely, but then again, who knows?

BTW, all the forests in Japan have name tags, just like people at work or children in schools. This is a very ordered society. If you want to be a new species, the application process is a real bear ;)
 
Hi everyone. After reading through the above enlightening discussion, I am wondering about the species that have gone through the human's extensively selective breeding. After several generations, the appearance (flower) of the offspring look so different from the original plants in the wild. Is it still righteous for those offspring to bear the same species name as the original plant?
 
Hi everyone. After reading through the above enlightening discussion, I am wondering about the species that have gone through the human's extensively selective breeding. After several generations, the appearance (flower) of the offspring look so different from the original plants in the wild. Is it still righteous for those offspring to bear the same species name as the original plant?
No
 

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