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# Species Concepts and Species Delimitation

## Details

**Authors** de Queiroz, Kevin

**Year** 2007

**Publisher** Systematic Biology 56(6), 879–886

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Evolutionary Biology

**Secondary disciplines** Philosophy

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1080/10635150701701083) 
10.1080/10635150701701083

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To resolve a long-running controversy by separating how the species category is defined from how species boundaries are set.

### How they did it (methods)

Conceptual analysis of competing species concepts.

### What they found (results)

The author argues that species delimitation has been confused with species conceptualization. Alternative concepts agree that species are separately evolving metapopulation lineages and differ over secondary properties such as reproductive isolation, diagnosability and monophyly. He proposes a unified concept in which lineage separation is the necessary property and the secondary properties serve as operational evidence of separation.

## Commentary

### In short

A biologist argues that disagreements over what a species is mostly come from mixing up the definition with the methods for drawing species lines.

### Response

The paper distinguishes the concept from its operational criteria, and distinguishes lineages from one another; species are described as lineages within metapopulations, which touches the part-whole pattern. This is conceptual analysis, and the systems fit is modest compared with the distinction fit.

**Patterns it shows** D, S

Formal proof or model

**Added** 2026-10-20

**How to cite this** de Queiroz, Kevin (2007). Species Concepts and Species Delimitation. Systematic Biology 56(6), 879–886.