Comments on IVORY-BILLS LiVE!!: -- Whatevuh --

Among the problems that may never be resolved by D...

2008-06-27T08:33:00.000-04:00

Among the problems that may never be resolved by DNA: just how many (nuclear) genes does reproductive isolation require? Can a single gene lead to reproductive isolation? I think the answer is yes. Can the new technology detect this without concomitant behavioral and/or ecological study? I don't think so.

thanks for clarification Bill; I noticed after rea...

2008-06-27T05:30:00.000-04:00

thanks for clarification Bill; I noticed after reading the 'grrrlscientist' account it was all nuclear DNA, which made more sense (corrected above).
You know it's all just a plot from book publishers to get us all to buy new field guides next year, right? ;-)

Some clarifications here:The study is NOT about mi...

2008-06-26T23:44:00.000-04:00

Some clarifications here:

The study is NOT about mitochondrial DNA, and as such it has little direct relationship to the highly publicized "DNA bar coding" study published last year (or the Tanager reorganization mentioned in the intro of the bird world article). This new study used nuclear DNA -- the stuff of chromosomes that makes up the vast majority of the genome and is inherited from both parents, with sexual recombination and all that good stuff. It is concerned with higher levels of taxonomy above genus and species: families, orders, and the great divisions that reflect profound divides in the earliest stages of avian evolution. These results aren't just going to tweak life lists up or down by a few tickies. They are proposing to fundamentally restructure the basic architecture of our understanding of avian relationships and evolution. And as a byproduct of this, you can of course expect the AOU checklist order to be COMPLETELY rearranged -- AGAIN. Maybe they'll fix their hyphenation this time?