The morphological species concept states that if morphological criteria and anatomical structures match, organisms belong to the same species. It is believed to be a reliable approach in analyzing the groups of animals (Heethoff, 2018). A dog breed is a type of dog that has been selectively developed by people in order to fulfill certain activities, including farming, defending, or hunting. The dog breed classification is considered to be a challenging issue that provokes the occurrence of technological solutions (Kumar shah et al., 2020). A dog is a blood relative of a wolf, and its behavior, physiology, and constitution have all altered as the result of domestication. The morphological species concept does not apply to the dog breed problem since distinctions between dog breeds and dogs and wolves are not enough to make them separate species. In addition, according to the evolutionary standpoint, dogs are immature.
Humans utilize artificial selection to choose desired qualities in farm commodities or animals, rather than allowing species to develop and adapt naturally, as biological evolution does. Domesticated animals influenced by artificial selection exhibit significant phenotypic changes in behavior, appearance, and biochemistry compared to their wild relatives (Wang et al., 2017). There have been approximately 1.5 million live animal species identified; however, it is predicted that there are nearly 7 million species overall (Al-Araj et al., 2020). According to the substantial number of species, the process of determining them is sophisticated. Moreover, unknown habitat is needed to domesticate beasts to meet human demand; consequently, animals in the new conditions will obtain differences that will complicate the issue of defining species.
The question of determining species can be irrelevant due to the ideas that describe the absence of such grouping and differentiation. Species do not truly exist in nature due to evolution and the interconnected essence of existence; therefore, the concept is purely subjective (The Existence of Different Species, 2017). At the same time, it is impossible from the human’s perspective to observe no distinctions between animals that will provide an opportunity to unite them. To my mind, defining species is influenced by the factor that strives to persuade that no species exist, so the classification has no reason.
References
Al-Araj, R. S., Abed, S. K., Al-Ghoul, A. N., & Abu-Naser, S. S. (2020). Classification of Animal Species Using Neural Network. International Journal of Academic Engineering Research, 4(10), 23-31. Web.
Heethoff, M. (2018). Cryptic Species – Conceptual or Terminological Chaos? A Response to Struck et al. Trends Ecology Evolution, 33(5), 310. Web.
Kumar shah, B., Kumar, A., & Kumar, A. (2020). Dog Breed Classifier for Facial Recognition using Convolutional Neural Networks.2020 3rd International Conference on Intelligent Sustainable Systems, 508-513. Web.
The Existence of Different Species is a Scientific Construct, not an Argument against Evolution. (2017). Forbes. Web.
Wang, Y. M., Xu, H. B., Wang, M. S., Otecko, N. O., Ye, L. Q., Wu, D. D., & Zhang, Y. P. (2017). Annotating long intergenic non-coding RNAs under artificial selection during chicken domestication. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 17. Web.