Explain the Ecological Approach in Taxonomy

You already known that the use of ecological data in classification has been used since the time of Plato who considered aquatic, terrestrial and aerial habitats as characteristics in the identification of organisms. However, it was Aristotle who laid a great stress on such characteristics in animal identification and used them liberally in his classification system.

Today ecological data in systematic is used quite often, particularly in case of identification of closely related or sibling species. The ecological approach in taxonomy is based on the fact that every species occupies its own niche in nature which differs from its closest relative in terms of food preference, breeding tolerances to various physical factors etc. Thus, when two closely related species coexist in the same general habitat they avoid fatal inter specific competition by differing in their ecological. Species characteristics like food preference etc. i. e, their niche.

Ecological data in systematic has helped in the identification of several animal species. It has been used to identify, for example, two species of Drosophila, D. rnulleri and D. aldrichi both of which live in the same habitat, which is the decaying pulps of the fruits of the cactus Opuntia lindheimeri. They are separated on the basis of their specific preferences for certain yeasts and bacteria. Similarly, the Anophelese maculipennis complex has been broken into six independent species on the basis of ecological differences as you can see in Table.

Table: Shows the breaks up of six sibbling species of Anopheles maculipennis complex on basis of ecological data