Les séminaires de l’ISYEB - Richard Bateman, Royal Botanic Garden, Kew.

Soutenance de thèse en amphithéâtre Rouelle
Soutenance de thèse en amphithéâtre Rouelle
Two bees or not two bees ? An overview of bee orchid systematics
Two bees or not two bees ? An overview of bee orchid systematics
Two bees, or not two bees—that is the question :
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous concepts
Or to take arms against a sea of species
And by opposing, end them.
[with apologies to William Shakespeare]
Until recently, arguments regarding species circumscription focused on the boundary between science and pseudoscience, but in recent years they have also become a battleground between different branches of the biological sciences. Bee orchids of the genus Ophrys will be used as a case-study to explore how best to define and circumscribe species when a wide range of analytical approaches have been brought to bear on the problem yet an agreed solution remains elusive.