Taxonomic inflation and the poverty of the Phylogenetic Species Concept – a reply to Gippoliti and Groves

摘要

There has been an ongoing debate over mammalian taxonomy, species splitting and the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC). As a reply to a recent commentary in this journal, we characterise the PSC in its two most widely used versions (based on diagnosability and monophyly, respectively) and highlight both its theoretical flaws and practical shortcomings for taxonomy, evolutionary biology and conservation.