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Old 10-07-2006, 09:57 PM   #3 (permalink)
JoeReal
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Default Re: Scientific names

Scientific names of bananas, like that of citruses will forever be in chaos. No one would agree to standard naming due to the fact that they can be produced true to type from complex hybrids of several species. They can occur as diploids, triploids, quadruploids and other polyploids, and so, if you can reproduce them at will, true to type, either via tissue culture or rhizomes, what would be the official scientific names? The complex hybridization is happening in nature. Funny thing is that citruses can be formed from various hybrids, and the resulting offspring can be produced true to type from seeds via nucellar embryos, fooling a lot of early taxonomists that they fit a true species definition. This throws off everything on how to standardize the naming of such things, and they occur in nature, and so much more with our intervention.

With today's intervention, how do we name such things with interspecies gene splices? Or for example, how would we scientifically name pluots and apriums which are complex hybrids of two distinct species of plums and apricots? We even have tri-species hybrids now that includes peach genes in them, all done without genetic engineering, using ingenuity of plant breeding, which now can be speed up with genetic engineering. Because we can propagate these vegetatively and could behave like a separate species, how do we assign scientific names to these?

Whatever the standard will be, everyone will agree that no one will agree.
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