Il concetto di specie e la paleontologia: una rassegna introduttiva

Massimo Bernardi (*) & Alessandro Minelli (**)
(*) Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali, Via Calepina 14, 38122 Trento. E-mail: massimo.bernardi@mtsn.tn.it (**) Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Padova, Via U. Bassi 58/B, 35131 Padova. E-mail: alessandro.minelli@unipd.it

The species is the fundamental unit, reference for all biological classifications and for past and present biodiversity analysis. In practice, species seem to be often (but non always) easily identifiable. There is, however, poor agreement on a definition of this concept. Different views on various issues have led to a proliferation of species concepts, particularly in recent years. In this contribution we present an overview of the most controversial points, the proposed solutions, and their formalization in alternative definitions. Special attention is given to the fossil species debate by reviewing the main contributions published on the topic: from the first symposium dedicated to the species problem in palaeontology, to the definition of units of representation, through the most popular species concept that have been used in palaeontology.

species, taxonomy, phylogeny, cladistics