The potential of using sets of specimens to handle species concepts
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Taxonomy
- Keywords
- set noation, taxonomy, biological specimens, species concept
- Copyright
- © 2015 Baker
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2015. The potential of using sets of specimens to handle species concepts. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1533v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1533v2
Abstract
The use of notation and concepts from mathematical set theory is investigated as a method for describing species concepts, and potentially higher level taxa. These methods may facilitate the easy databasing of species concepts, allowing the concepts themselves to become citable through the provision of unique identifiers. The increase in unique identifiers (such as Life Science Identifiers or Digital Object Identifiers) for biological specimens in recent years may make this approach more feasible than it would have been previously.
Author Comment
This version addresses some of the comments made so far by others and is more heavily referenced. It is still very much a work in progress and I have further changes to make after some additional research and reflection.