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Why does ernst mayr's biological species concept not apply to archaea and bacteria?

User Student
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This is because Bacteria and Archaea don’t reproduce sexually.

Ernst Mayr defined a species as:

"species are groups of interbreeding natural populations that are reproductively isolated from other such groups."

Bacteria reproduce through binary fission, a form of asexual reproduction.

Archaea also reproduce asexually by binary fission, fragmentation, or budding.


User Apurv Gupta
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