Complementary Roles of Phenotype and Genotype in Subspecies Delimitation

<span class="paragraphSection">Recent exchanges in this journal about subspecies taxonomy (<a href="#CIT0007" class="reflinks">Fredrickson et al. 2015</a>; <a href="#CIT0030" class="reflinks">Weckworth et al. 2015</a>; <a href="#CIT0006" class="reflinks">Cronin et al. 2015</a>) signal an increased attention to this Linnaean rank, yet it is clear from some of the discourse that misconceptions about subspecies definitions persist. We emphasize that our goal is not to evaluate the validity of named subspecies of the gray wolf (<span style="font-style:italic;">Canis lupus</span>), even if we refer to this particular example because it was the basis of the published exchange. Rather, our goals are to outline current thinking and methodology of practitioners who use subspecific taxonomy and to highlight the difficulty, short of further theory (e.g., development of a sound null model), inherent in use of neutral genetic markers to establish the validity of subspecies.</span>

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