Well, hybridization is certainly not a new theory -- as the article mentions, many plants hybridize quite readily, and the existence of &quot;ring species&quot; just goes to show how fuzzy the biological species concept is. The proper way to think about species is that they are <i>hypotheses</i> to be tested, and evidence can variously favor merging or splitting species.<p>In the case of conservation, there are political reasons for defining species. The laws either have no provision for protecting populations below the species level, or otherwise there&#x27;s no political will to attempt to do so. Therefore conservation biologists will often try to keep species &quot;distinct&quot; in order to keep what would normally be termed a &quot;population&quot; or &quot;subspecies&quot; under protection. (You might ask why bother protecting populations or subspecies when the larger species is fine -- oftentimes there are suspected local adaptations that would be wiped out by letting that population go extinct or hybridize with other populations.)