Choosing Local Genotype Native Plants

“The Linnean classification system of genus and species limits our view of life to think of plants and animals as scientific bionomial names. The Linnean system can give us a false confidence that as long as you know the species, you don't need to look further, and it restricts our ability to conserve and protect biodiversity in plant communities. We need the ability to express ecological adaptations of a species to a particular habitat. Grinnell & Miller (1944) were able to accomplish this with birds when they related bird subspecies to life zones and ecological formations. Their Screech owl and Song sparrow subspecies are the equivalent of bird ecotypes. The conservation of biodiversity needs attention below the species level, to the ecological level, to the ecotype level.

Study of native grass ecotypes will renew Clements, Turesson, Gregor and Lawrence's idea of creating a new taxonomic language relating the species and its ecotypes to the habitat that created them. Frederic Clements, America's first major ecotype researcher, wrote in 1908 that species have a connection to their environment. Clements' contribution changed the concept of species. No longer would a species just be an assemblage of morphological structures. Through ecotypes, he reconnected species to their habitats.”