Species

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• SPECIES

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• What is a species? Organisms of the same species:
• have more characteristics in common than they do with organisms of a different species
• can interbreed to produce fertile offspring.
• Sometimes a species may have different kinds or breeds that show great variation but the individuals still belong to the same species.
• Similar species tend to live in similar habitats, and are closely related in evolutionary terms. They are likely to share a relatively recent ancestor. Closely related species living in different types of habitat may have different characteristics. You can use keys to identify organisms according to their features.
• A species is defined as organisms that produce fertile offspring but this is sometimes limited as some organisms do not always reproduce sexually, and some hybrids are fertile.
• Sometimes classification can be complicated by:
• variation within a species
• hybridisation (closely related species breed to produce offspring that have characteristics of both – the hybrids are often infertile)
• ring species – neighbouring populations of species may have slightly different characteristics but can still interbreed as part of a chain but the two ends of the chain can’t interbreed.