T. shanjing is not a species anymore

[Kamil]

Hello dear People,

I know that there is a forum for english-speaking people but I thought it would fit better in here anyway. Today I was shown a paper (on chinese unfortunately) that is saying that T. shanjing is no vaild species anymore. It is a clade in the Genus T. verrucosus.
I can not read chinese but I can read the english Abstract ;-) The table on page 6 also shows the same thing.

You can download it from my homepage: Download from triturus.de

All the best,

Kamil

[Roy van Grunsven]

It does not support T. shanjing but it does not proof it is not a seperate species in my opinion. They have only used cyt B, and if I understood it correctly only one verrucosus.
If you look at the most parsimonious tree, verucosus is between the shanjings but that part is unresolved so you can't conclude a thing. Bayesian trees are always tricky with things like this.

[Kamil]

Hi,

yes I have overseen the number of T. verrucosus ... But I think the tendency is rather in direction of a subspecies - and not an own species anymore.

Best Greetings,

Kamil

[Wouter]

I'll post my comment on caudata.org also here, since we're discussing this in English anyway!

Anyway, I'm curious about the conclusion, since there doesn't seem to be taxonomic conclusions except for the doubtfull species status of T. shanjing. Will this become a subspecies of T. verrucosus? I't isn't impossible that there is some transition between both species in extreme southwestern Yunnan (although I had never expected that). It seems to me preliminary to give T. shanjing a subspecific status, certainly when compared to T. verrucosus from other countries which are cleary different at a species level to me (Nepal, India). Complete phylogeography of the complex is needed though, maybe I'm totally wrong...

[Roy van Grunsven]

This article states that T. shanjing is not a monophyletical group. This does not mean it should be a subspecies but it means it is not valid at all.

I agree the two are close to eachother but this article is not good enough to draw a conclusion from in my opinion

[Roy van Grunsven]

I agree with the revision of the genus.

[Hein]

HELLO DEAR PEOPLE

Is het mogelijk ook in het nederlands te vermelden, begrijp dat dit intellectueel overkomt,maar vergis ik mij is dit nu een nederlandse site of een engelse site.Sta natuurlijk altijd open voor andere zienswijze ??? ???

[rob]

Hein,

ik ben het er mee eens dat Nederlands de voertaal is op het forum, maar degene die het topic opende, en dus met de begininformatie kwam sprak Engels. Het is dan logisch dat de rest van de discussie in het Engels gaat. Ik heb hier verder ook geen enkel probleem mee.

[Coen Deurloo]

Hein, op deze site kun je eventueel de hele website van engels naar nederlands (english to dutch) laten vertalen:

Babelfish

[Kamil]

Hello Hein,

voortaan zal ik meer geen nieuws op newts op dit forum posten van nu af aan ik babelfish zal gebruiken om mijn commentaren te geven - goed geluk begrijpend :D
Beste Groeten, Kamil

[Coen Deurloo]

Nog een nieuwe goede vertaalservice: Google Translate

[Roy van Grunsven]

Thanks
(But I'm still far from convinced)

[Kamil]

Not everything must be it's own species :-P

[Roy van Grunsven]

It's true that they are a lot alike. And if they are one or two (or three) species that is a matter of opinion not science. The reall question is what does the phylogeny look like and I'm not conviced that has been clarified.

[DannyS]

I don't know if there will ever be a clear answer to the species/subspecies question in this case. Since there are different ways to classify different species. DNA is one thing, but behaviour and appearance can also be seen as a method. This was used to classify the existing species.

A fun example of this is the dog (Canis lupus familiaris). The scientific name implies that all dogs belong to the same family, and looking at DNA the differences are very small. Even if you breed a Chihuahua with a Danish Dog or another big dog, the offspring will be fertile, something that generally cannot be done with separate species.
But you can also look at it another way: a Chihuahua will never breed with a big dog, because it is anatomically impossible due to the size differences. Even when using IVF, a Chihuahua female will never be able to give birth to the offspring, because they will very likely be bigger than the mother, so the pups will die along with the mother.

This is an existing dilemma amoung biologists, although in the case of dogs most of them agree that they are all one species.

In the case of T. shanjing I think further testing should prove if they can get fetile offspring etc.
The names would then most likely become T. verrucosus verrucosus and T. verrucosus shanjing.

Since the discovery of DNA there have been a lot of changes in the naming of the animal and plant kingdoms, so changes like this will continue for a while. I know it is annoying, but I think in the end it is for the better.