Thankfully my bud Michael Patten explained his PhD thesis which was on ring
species / subspecies of Song Sparrow down in interior Southern California in
layman’s terms. I hadn’t heard of the ring species concept but it is really
interesting.
If I am remembering correctly this is what it means. It is very geographically
driven as one might expect. Think of a horse shoe of mountains around a desert.
Starting at the bottom of one side is subspecies A. The adjacent subspecies B
is a bit more distinct than the previous, etc. By the time you reach the other
bottom of the horse shoe the first and last are very different to the point
where they don’t breed with Subspecies A, even though there is interbreeding
amongst the adjacent subspecies.
Shawneen Finnegan
Sent from my iPad
On Mar 8, 2019, at 2:13 PM, Bob Archer <rabican1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:POST: Send your post to obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi:
If you want a headache, google “Song Sparrow ring species”. Should be one
of the top options. Anyone who wishes to summarize for me, please do. And
saying “subspecies are complicated” is not an acceptable summary. Tried to
read that a few months ago.
Bob Archer
