Thursday, August 14, 2014
Remix Species
Tions and ligers, and pizzlies, oh my! The August 17, 2014, New York Times Magazine features a timely article about hybridization among species, entitled "Should You Fear the Pizzly Bear?". Although there is little coverage of the raging scientific debate over what "species" are, and whether they even exist, the discussion of how habitat alteration, overhunting, and climate change may be driving widespread genomic remixture across previously-divergent phylogenetic lineages. As Dr. Peter Venkman exclaimed in Ghostbusters, "dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"