RE: Response to range-wide snow leopard phylogeography supports three subspecies In response to Janecka et al. (2017), we welcome this much-needed study on the phylogeography of the snow leopard. Gathering and producing a data set of this size and quality on such an elusive species has clearly taken a longterm and large-scale collaborative international effort which should not, in any sense, be underestimated. The genetic data will undoubtedly benefit both scientific understanding and inform future conservation management of the species. It is, however, unfortunate and unnecessary to conclude, based on this data set, that the snow leopard comprises three separate subspecies. We feel this conclusion the overinterpretats an otherwise solid molecular data set and that this move goes against a more general feeling in conservation genetics, that it is advisable to avoid the use of the ill-defined, and problematic "subspecies" label (Table 1) and to move away from reliance on traditional population genetic data alone to generate units of any kind below the species level. Instead, multiple lines of genetic and nongenetic evidence that have some basis in fitness should be preferred (
As an important economic natural resource in Southeast Asia, reticulated pythons (Malayopython reticulatus ssp.) are primarily harvested from the wild for their skins—which are prized in the luxury leather goods industry. Trade dynamics of this CITES Appendix II listed species are complex and management approaches on the country or regional level appear obscure. Little is known about the actual geographic point-of-harvest of snakes, how genetic diversity is partitioned across the species range, how current harvest levels may affect the genetic viability of populations, and whether genetic structure could (or should) be accounted for when managing harvest quotas. As an initial survey, we use mitochondrial sequence data to define the broad-scale geographic structure of genetic diversity across a significant portion of the reticulated python’s native range. Preliminary results reveal: (1) prominent phylogenetic structure across populations east and west of Huxley’s modification of Wallace’s line. Thirty-four haplotypes were apportioned across two geographically distinct groups, estimated to be moderately (5.2%); (2) Philippine, Bornean and Sulawesian populations appear to cluster distinctly; (3) individuals from Ambon Island suggest recent human introduction. Malayopython reticulatus is currently managed as a single taxonomic unit across Southeast Asia yet these initial results may justify special management considerations of the Philippine populations as a phylogenetically distinct unit, that warrants further examination. In Indonesia, genetic structure does not conform tightly to political boundaries and therefore we advocate the precautionary designation and use of Evolutionary Significant Units within Malayopython reticulatus, to inform and guide regional adaptive management plans.
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