PT157.S4.P3.Q16 > Analytics

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Political arguments about biodiversity and the preservation of endangered species generally assume we know what a species is. ███ █████████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ █ ██████ ███████ ███ ████ ████ █ █████████ ███ █████████████ █████████ ███

Context · What's a "species"? Arguments about biodiversity assume we know this.

Debate among ornithologists · Lumpers vs. splitters

Lumpers group separate, but similar bird populations into a single species. Splitters divide those populations into different species.

Lumpers' perspective · Biological species concept

A species is a group that is reproductively isolated from other groups (not a lot of interbreeding in the wild between the groups).

Splitters' perspective · Phylogenetic species concept

A species is a population which has a pattern of ancestry and descent. Members of a species have a distinctive, genetically traceable feature.

Intro to Sibley · Part of splitters. Used DNA-DNA hybridization.

This technique compares DNA to determine relationships between different groups birds.

Sibley's perspective · Many earlier bird classifications were wrong

Examples: American vultures are more related to storks than European vultures. Loons and grebes aren't closely related.

One criticism of sibley (not by author) · DNA analysis still requires arbitrary interpretation

DNA shows differences between groups. But there's no clear line when those differences signify different species.

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Sibley's potential response · Acknowledges that "species concept" is slippery

However, for practical reasons, we have to limit the number of species we recognize. (If we said you were a different species from your mom, because you have slightly different DNA, that would lead to billions of different "species" in the world. That's impractical.)

Implications of debate · How we answer the species question has political and economic consequences

Example: Increasing number of species would likely increase number of endangered species.

Passage Style

Critique or debate

16.

According to the passage, which ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ████████████ ███████ ████████

It has effectively ███████████ █████ ███████ ██ ███████ ███████████████

Unsupported. The only methods for species classification described in the passage are the method of the lumpers and the method of the splitters. The lumpers use the biological species concept, while the splitters use the phylogenetic species concept. The passage doesn’t indicate that the splitters have discredited the lumpers, so (A) isn’t supported.

Its popularity has ████████ █████ ███ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████

Unsupported. We don’t know how the popularity of the splitter perspective (or the phylogenetic species concept) has changed specifically since Sibley’s death.

It is more ██████ ██ ███████████ ████ ██ ████ █████ ██████████ █████████

Unsupported. The passage doesn’t compare classification methods that are useful for ornithology with methods that are useful for most other biological sciences, so this comparative statement doesn’t have support.

It has more ██████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ██ ███ █████

This is stated in P1. Here, we see that the phylogenetic species concept is increasingly popular.

66%

It was pioneered ██ ███████ ██ ███████

Unsupported. We know that Sibley can be called a splitter, but the passage doesn’t indicate that he came up with the phylogenetic species concept.

14%

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PrepTest 157 - Section 4 - Passage 3 - Question 16

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