Name: TUGUINAY, KYLIE JOY P.

Class Code: 5014

Species Concept:

RECOGNITION

Introduction

Recognition species concept is concerned with the meeting of conspecific

sexual partners with accuracy and reliability. It is accomplished by the Specific Mate
Recognition System which comprises several essential adaptations which evolved to
provide for their meeting and eventually, for syngamy. It is an integral part of sexual
cycle, wherein males and females of the same species share a particular signal-
response pattern. The present diversity of sexually reproducing species displays the
presence of mechanism for specific mate recognition in each of them. Mate
recognition, however, in animals, is complex and difficult to study. The signals which
form integral part of recognition among frogs, nonetheless, are produced regularly
and are easy to analyze, making frogs an excellent group in the study of
communication between conspecific males and females (Passmore, 1981). Mate-
recognition system includes courtship display, the timing of reproductive events,
neuroendocrine signals (pheromones), design of copulatory organs, gamete
compatibility (sperm and egg proteins). Problems in this species concept includes
being inapplicability to asexual species and that recognition systems often go
inaccurate when hybridization occur.

This species concept was proposed by Hugh E.H Paterson. He was born on
December 26, 1926 in Pietersburg (Polokwane). He finished his Bachelor of Science
in the University of Witwatersrand in 1951. For twelve years, he worked at the
South African Institute for Medical Research while studying at Oxford University for
a year and with a British council scholarship. He became an achiever until he
returned to Australia as a professor in Entomology at the University of Queensland.
He died at the same country and on October 12, 2019. He was not an ornithologist
but often exemplified birds in his evolutionary ideas (Craig, 1926–2019).
Species

Species, according to the recognition species concept, is a set of organisms

that has the ability to recognize other organism as potential mate, making them
belong to the same species (Other Species Concepts, 2023). It is the most inclusive
population of individual biparental organisms which share a common fertilization
(Paterson, 1985).

Uniqueness

The recognition concept is distinctive to the biological concept in terms of

isolating mechanisms occurring before fertilization. To Paterson, the Specific Mate
Recognition Systems (SMRS), which is an important characteristic, is more or less
the inverse of prezygotic isolating mechanisms – a reproductive category in which
separation of different species occurs to keep them from creating offspring by
preventing the gametes from forming a zygote.

Example attributed to the species concept

Species like birds and frogs are often observable to human due to their
distinctive courtship displays which includes visual and acoustical and visual
display. Males are identified by females based on these species-specific displays,
particularly concerned about the conspecific or heterospecific being of the males.
Studies on species-recognition function for courtship showed that females are likely
to be more attracted to the courtship display of a conspecific male than of the
heterospecific. For frogs, it was demonstrated that they have a biased auditory
system that only conspecific species could detect whereas heterospecific species fail
to elicit a neural response to this call. The Tungura frog (Physalaemus pustulosus)
expresses a complex advertisement call that consists a tonal whine and brief chucks.
When calling in isolation, the male produces simple calls which only consists a
whine. However, in a large chorus, the calls get more complex, with the addition of
chucks after a whine (Ryan, 2019).
Personal insight (agreement)

Species-recognition, based on the description above, provided sufficient

evidence that unveils the mystery which lies on the reproductive activity of
organisms. It arrived to me agreeable that it is, indeed, due to their courting
mechanisms that they are able to recognize a potential mate. The frog’s
communicating mechanism, if analyzed, gives a significant implication towards their
courting displays. In this concept, it is stated that organisms have some distinct
ability to recognize their potential mate which makes them the same species. This
distinct ability may truly be observable through the sounds they produce. By the
observation on the complexity of their calls, it may be through which that a pair of
potential mates could understand and recognize each other.

Reference
Craig, A. (1926–2019). Hugh Edward Haldane Paterson . Ostrich Journal of African
Ornithology.

Other Species Concepts. (2023). Retrieved from Understanding Evolution:

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/other-species-concepts/#:~:text=Recognitio
n%20species%20concept%3A%20a%20species,under%20the
%20recognition%20species%20concept.

Passmore, N. I. (1981). THE RELEVANCE OF THE SPECIFIC MATE RECOGNITION

CONCEPT TO ANURAN REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY. Monitore Zoologico
Italiano. Supplemento.

Ryan, M. J. (2019). Signals, Species, and Sexual Selectio.