Specimens, subspecies, and GPS

Michael Gochfeld gochfeld at eohsi.rutgers.edu
Fri Mar 26 04:59:08 EST 1999


Maybe universal GPS will come along and solve this problem.  I don't 
know the current status, but there has been talk of putting GPS into 
portable phones so that emergency responders will know where to go when 
they go 911 calls.  Maybe we'll soon have GPS wrist watches, so we'll 
always know exactly where we are (or for sci fi buffs, where someone 
else will always know where we are).  

Then every type specimen would have its GPS coordinates, and as more 
observations accrue, its range would self-map thru the use of 
coordinates.

On a separate note, I think it was George Gaylord Simpson who showed a 
graph illustrating two closely related mammalian paleospecies in the 
fossil record, showing how one disappeared and the next appeared, and 
the break seemed to come at a point in time when there were no fossils 
of either.   

In order for subspecies to arise there usually has to be some 
interuption of gene flow (for example islands are often adequate 
barriers for non-mobile species).  I presume that is why in widespread 
bird species we are more likely to find acceptable subspecies in the 
western US with its extensive montane/valley topography, rather than in 
the more homogeneous eastern US where clines are more frequent. 

M. Gochfeld


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