Farewell to Species - reticulation

Curtis Clark jcclark at CSUPOMONA.EDU
Mon Feb 14 22:22:13 CST 2000


At 12:10 AM 00.02.15 +0100, Hubert Turner wrote:
>When that branch was terminal, it was referred
>to as a species, so why not continue to do so?

Absolutely! It seems strange to me that a species could lose its
"species-hood" ex post facto. I really do see Tom's point, but I think that
his species are not as useful as the ones I study.

>In fact, it may already have split up,
>only we haven't recognised it (yet).

And that was my point about peripheral isolates. It seems strange that
absolute recognition of every divergence is required for proper
classification at the "species" level when it is unnecessary for more
inclusive clades.


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Curtis Clark                  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department             Voice: (909) 869-4062
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