[Leps-l] Monarch subspecies (was: Finally Announced...)

[Roger Kuhlman]

I then have a empirical question. Is there any regular natural gene flow between Migrating Monarch populations and most or any sedentary Monarch populations. I would doubt it but I do not know the answer to this question. I am not specifically concerned with whether you can technically call long distance Migrating Monarchs a subspecies or not. Instead I am emphasizing the biological uniqueness or richness of the two long-distance Monarch migrations that are found in America and Canada. If these migrations collapse, I would strongly doubt that they could be replaced and replicated through the use of basically non-migratory Monarchs. To lose the Monarch migration would be a calamitous loss for the World's existing Biodiversity.

Roger Kuhlman
________________________________
From: Leps-l <leps-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Douglas Yanega <dyanega at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2022 12:42 PM
To: leps-l at mailman.yale.edu <leps-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Leps-l] Monarch subspecies (was: Finally Announced...)


Just an FYI from an ICZN Commissioner:

The ICZN regulates names from superfamily down to subspecies, but:

(1) any names proposed or used below subspecies are unregulated - meaning a presently-recognized variety, form, or other infrasubspecific entity is nomenclaturally unavailable - technically, it has neither an authorship, nor a date, and is not subject to the rules of priority. Names proposed for "forms" or "varieties" published before 1960 can sometimes be available, but only under very specific circumstances. So, for the monarch, "form nivosus" should never be given with an authorship or date, or italicized, as it is not actually a species-rank name, and under the Code only species-rank (species and subspecies) and genus-rank (genus and subgenus) names are ever italicized.

(2) the Code does not provide a biological definition of the various ranks, even though it does limit the ranks it governs. A species, or a subspecies, is whatever a taxonomist says it is, and all the Code defines is whether that entity's name has been properly published, and how it is to be treated once it has been published (spelling, authorship, date, etc.).

That being said, in my experience the most common use of subspecies in taxonomy is for populations that are allopatric/allochronic, with characters that reliably distinguish them, but for which the presumption is that were they to ever secondarily come into contact, they would produce fully fertile offspring. If there is routine gene flow between two populations, or no characters distinguishing them, they would not generally conform to this definition. In that respect, the question regarding monarchs would be whether a person could be given a monarch specimen with no collection data, and still tell definitively (by DNA or some other technique) which population it belonged to? If the answer is yes, then how many distinct populations can be identified? That would give the upper limit on assignable subspecies.

Peace,

--
Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega
phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
             https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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