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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Murray Lord" data-source="post: 1792894" data-attributes="member: 49730">This is what the paper has to say on that topic.  The risk he cautions against in the second paragraph seems to me a very real one - but of course any law or policy that seeks to conserve every subspecies on the basis that it's a conservation unit worthy of preservation runs exacly the same risk.A particularly disingenuous criticism of thebiological species concept as an impediment toconservation is the claim that it masks biodiversity.For example, Peterson (2006) denounced thebiological species concept for overlooking numerousdistinct populations but did not mentionthat under this concept all of those populationsare named, as subspecies, and overlooked onlyif one restricts an analysis to the species rank.Thus, Peterson (2006) found much higher levelsof species richness and unrecognized or underappreciatedpatterns of endemism by applicationof a diagnosability-based species concept; however,he did not point out that an analysis that includedsubspecies would have revealed the samepatterns that he “discovered.”Application of the phylogenetic species conceptproduces two potentially severe problemsfor conservation. First, opponents of conservationwould quickly discover that the definition ofspecies had been changed to elevate more taxa tohigher threat levels, with accusations of manipulationof the rules. Changing the definition wouldonly fuel the suspicions of conservation opponentsthat scientists have abandoned objectivityin favor of a pro-conservation agenda. Second,elevating to species rank many taxa diagnosableonly by characters that conservation opponents,the general public, and most biologists wouldjustifiably label as trivial could diminish confidencein conservation science, undermine thecredibility of taxonomists, and erode support forprograms to protect threatened species.</blockquote>

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