Re: Taxonomy question
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2013 7:39 pm
Ford defines one usage of the word 'form'. But the fact remains that there is equivocation. Helice and valesina, for example are not potential subspecies. They are not characteristic of local populations but forms that may present themselves in widely separated and evolutionarily divergent breeding communities. As mentioned before, some 'forms' (for example, prorsa and levana) predate specific, let alone subspecific divergence.
I guess we have to live with the equivocation, unless we decide to rewrite the lexicon ourselves (which is generally a bad idea). If 'form' is to be used of local, cladal, populations, I would prefer a different word - perhaps 'morph' (which goes nicely with 'dimorphic'), or maybe 'phase', as used by birders - to be used for recurrent morphological diversity that cuts across the phylogentic tree. But as it is, history has left us one word, 'form', which means at least two quite different things.
GUy
I guess we have to live with the equivocation, unless we decide to rewrite the lexicon ourselves (which is generally a bad idea). If 'form' is to be used of local, cladal, populations, I would prefer a different word - perhaps 'morph' (which goes nicely with 'dimorphic'), or maybe 'phase', as used by birders - to be used for recurrent morphological diversity that cuts across the phylogentic tree. But as it is, history has left us one word, 'form', which means at least two quite different things.
GUy
