BioConcepts

lineagelineage (fr.); Stammlinie (ger.)

• 1) Lineal descent from an ancestor; ancestry, pedigree. (OED 2012)
  category phylogenesis

  1654

  wenn der Hertzoge und Herren von Würtenberg Stamm Linie gantz absterben und keiner mehr seyn würde

  Anonymus (1654). Wiederholete Summarische Deduction des Chur- und Fürstlichen Hauses Sachssen: [15] (Ablehnung des Ersten Einwurfs, Resp. 2). 

  1671

  des Alberti II. Stamm-Linie in- und mit demselben erloschen

  Anonymus (1671). Gründliche Fürstell- und Erweisung, daß die Succession in- und an dem Fürstenthum Nieder-Sachsen insgemein Lauenburg genannt, auff den sich begebenden Abgang des Herrn Hertzogen zu Sachsen, Engern und Westphalen Fürstlichen Leibes-Lehens Erben, dem HochFürstl. Hause Anhalt allein von Rechtswegen gebühre: [7].

  1702

  Stamm-lini/ f. Linea di qualche stirpe; Lignaggio.

  Kramer, M. (1700-02). Das herrlich Grosse Deutsch-Italiänische Dictionarium, 2 vols.: II, 905.

• 2) A sequence of species each of which is considered to have evolved from its predecessor. (OED 2012)
  category phylogenesis

  1838

  Wohl fühlen wir aufs Bestimmteste, daß der Fleischfresser mit dem bewehrten Rachen und den scharfen Klauen, und der sanfte Wiederkäuer mit dem sprossenden Geweih vor der Stirn ewig getrennt sind und waren, daß ihre Stammlinien in die Nacht der Schöpfung hinaus parallel verlaufen.

  H.H. [Hauff, H.] (1838). Die Menschenracen. Deutsche Vierteljahrs-Schrift 2, 170-248: 234.

  1860

  The author of this book [scil. Charles Darwin] endeavors to establish, though by a different theory and a somewhat different process of reasoning, the same conclusion which was arrived at by the French naturalist, Lamarck, and by the English author of the “Vestiges of Creation”;—namely, that all the species, genera, orders, and classes of animal and vegetable life are essentially of one blood and lineage, having been developed out of one another, without the intervention anywhere of any act of creative power;—developed by the slow but progressive accumulation, through what is practically an infinite lapse of ages, of differences and variations which were at first, and for a long period of time, so slight as to be wholly imperceptible.

  [Bowen, F.]. (1860). [Rev. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection]. North American Review 90, 474-506: 474.

  1868

  Aus Paarnasen, welche von echten Haifischen vermuthlich nur wenig verschieden waren, haben sich als drei divergente Linien einerseits die Schmelzfische, andererseits die Lurchfische, und drittens, als wenig veränderte Stammlinie, die übrigen Selachier entwickelt.

  Haeckel, E. (1868). Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte: 445 (18th lecture) (not in ed. 1889!).

  1871

  [Da wir keine Urkunden über die Descendenzreihen besitzen, so können diese Abstammungslinien nur durch Beobachtung der Aehnlichkeitsgrade zwischen den einzelnen zu classificirenden Wesen entdeckt werden.

  Darwin, C. (1871). The Descent of Man (germ. Die Abstammung des Menschen, 2 vols., Stuttgart 1871-72): I, 164.]

  1940

  The palaeobiologist […] working with fossil material, expresses his phylogenetic judgments in terms of lineages. For example, Arkell and Moy Thomas […] describe parallel lineages in the evolution of the Ammonites in Devonian rocks.

  Gilmour, J.S.L. (1940). Taxonomy and Philosophy. In: Huxley, J. (ed.). The New Systematics, 461-474: 469.

  1961

  An evolutionary species is a lineage (an ancestor-descendant sequence of populations) evolving separately from others and with its own unitary evolutionry role and tendencies

  Simpson, G.G. (1961). The Principles of Animal Taxonomy: 153; cf. id. (1951). The species concept. Evolution 5, 285-298: 289.

  1976

  A species is a lineage (or a closely related set of lineages) which occupies an adaptive zone minimally different from that of any other lineage in its range and which evolves seperately from all lineages outside its range.

  A lineage is a clone or an ancestral-descendent sequence of populations. A population is a group of individuals in which adjacent individuals at least occasionally exchange genes with each other reproductively, and in which adjacent individuals do so more frequently than with individuals outside the population.

  Van Valen, L. (1976). Ecological species, multispecies, and oakes. Taxon 25, 233-239: 233.

  1978

  Species lineages […] are the things which evolve

  Hull, D. (1978). A matter of individuality. Philos. Sci. 45, 335-360: 347.

  1979

  It is lineages that evolve

  Dawkins, R. & Krebs, J.R. (1979). Arms races between and within species. Proc. Roy. Soc. London B 205, 489-511: 492.

  1980

  lineage: an entity that changes indefinitely through time either in the same or an altered state as a result of replication

  Neither genes nor organisms can function as lineages because neither can change indefinitely without becoming numerically distinct individuals. However, both form lineages that can and do evolve.

  Hull, D. (1980). Individuality and selection (In: id., The Metaphysics of Evolution, Albany 1989, 89-109): 106; cf. id. (1980). The units of evolution. In: Jensen, U.J. & Harré, R. (eds.). Studies in the Concept of Evolution.

  1982

  lineage A line of common descent; line.

  Lincoln, R.J., Boxshall, G.A. & Clark, P.F. (1982). A Dictionary of Ecology, Evolution and Systematics: 142.

  1988

  [Stammlinien sind] jene Segmente der Phylogenese, in denen ihre [d.h. diejenigen der geschlossenen Abstammungsgemeinschaften] gemeinschaftsspezifischen Eigenmerkmale als evolutive Neuheiten evolviert wurden

  Ax, P. (1988). Systematik in der Biologie: 95.

  1997

  Many authors also say that lineages exist through time, that they change and evolve, and that they can be units of selection as in species and clade selection. We have already rejected these views as being logically impossible [...]. Histories and lineages of things are changes of things in time, so that histories and lineages themselves are unchangeable objects, hence nonentities. Consequently, lineages have neither evolutionary tendencies nor historical fates.

  Mahner, M. & Bunge, M. (1997). Foundations of Biophilosophy: 258; cf. 238; 257.