What's a subspecies was: Species Concept Question

[Ken Kinman]

Rich wrote:
     To regard them as subspecies now would just cause a lot of folks to scratch their heads....
     In other words, we can't discount the hypothesis that the Indian "flavissima" arose as a xanthic morph population entirely independantly of the Pacific "flavissima" (if, indeed, this is how they arose), and thus may represent convergence in color.
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     Well, I guess I just like making people scratch their heads and thinking harder about "testing" the status quo.  And that two populations of "flavissima" might have become xanthic morphs independently would make me even more (not less) tempted to put all these populations into one species.   I would say that head-scratching is preferable to complacency, and I am really surprised that noone has formally proposed this, especially given that the ONLY known difference is color pattern.

     Even to the non-specialist just interested in raising these fish in their aquarium, the fact that flavissima and vrolikii readily interbreed would be useful information.  Treating them as conspecific would be the clearest way of drawing attention to that information, although as you suggested, comments could be used to draw attention to it as well.   It could have even inspired some breeding experiments in the 80's or 90's that may have challenged the "status quo" a long time ago.

     In any case, I look forward to the results of molecular studies on these populations.  I wouldn't be surprised if the vrolikii population is the original mother population that has spun off two or more subspecies independently (i.e., that vrolikii is doubly or even triply paraphyletic).  If so, the sister to this whole grouping may show a color pattern more like the vrolikii population than to vrolikii's daughter populations.  Only time will tell.
            ----- Cheers,
                      Ken