Subspecies

[Mark Walker]

For the "amateur" perspective, I would just like to say that whatever naming
mechanism we invent, some formal means of identifying the variation among
populations should be preserved.  One of the negative aspects of "lumping"
in my view is the practice of removing the beneficial detail from
literature.  Sometimes I get the feeling that this practice may be
intended/encouraged by some to help protect isolated populations from
collecting pressure.  While I don't necessarily disagree with the potential
motives for such hypothetical attitudes, I do find the end result to be
deceptively non-informative.  The actual biological statement made in nature
regarding diversity is far more interesting than the one being presented in
the modern day field guides.  It would be unfortunate if the scientific
debate regarding species/sub-species status helped to create the kind of
information loss that occurs when high dimensional data is projected onto
fewer dimensions.

Mark Walker
Mission Viejo, CA 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Michael Gochfeld [mailto:gochfeld at EOHSI.RUTGERS.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 7:04 AM
> To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Re: Subspecies
> 
> 
> I should know better than to enter a fray about subspecies. 
> Even in the 
> naive days when we all believed that the biological species 
> concept was 
> a "given" and above reproach, arguments about subspecies were a 
> free-for-all. 
> 
> First (at the risk of sounding like an avian jingoist), I 
> think that the 
> subspecies concept grew mainly in ornithology.  I suggest that 
> butterflies are not merely fragile and pretty birds. Much of the 
> variability in butterflies simply doesn't occur in birds (for example 
> seasonal polyphenism).  Then too, butterflies variants and aberrants 
> received distinct names on a regular basis.  In ornithology this 
> happened only rarely and as a "mistake".  
> 
> Many subspecies names were applied to different regional populations 
> which were later recognized to represent clinal variation (in 
> which case 
> the names were dropped). 
> 
> In plants, for examples, in addition to geographic 
> "subspecies", there 
> are varieties, ecotypes (same genotype grown under different 
> conditions), which are morphologically distinct but would not 
> qualify as 
> subspecies in terms of trinomials.  (This doesn't even 
> include polyploid 
> varieties which I don't think have an equivalent in birds or 
> butterflies??).
> 
> In some cases subspecific epithets were applied when two creatures 
> formerly considered separate species were lumped (and conversely now 
> that there is a splitting culture, subspecies often get elevated to 
> species status).  In birds there is a long culture of NOT relying on 
> laboratory hybridization studies as representative of what happens in 
> nature (for those who believe that reproductive isolation is the 
> hallmark of distinct species).  
> 
> I think there is a reason to question whether the geographically 
> distinct subspecies concept is applicable to butterflies, 
> particularly 
> where two recognizably distinct forms also have different 
> ecological or 
> host preferences or requirements.  
> 
> Finally, the caterpillar may be the unit of most intense 
> selection, and 
> has no counterpart in the bird world.   
> 
> In birds, it is not at all unusual (in fact it is typical) to 
> have quite 
> different phyllogenies at the species and even generic level, 
> depending 
> on the character suites one studies.  This also applies to 
> phyllogenies 
> based on larvae vs adults. I can't imagine what would happen if one 
> tried to form trees at the population or subspecies level. 
> 
> Mike Gochfeld
>