On the Minestrone-ness of Bird Subspecies: Some Words on the Totally Human Endeavor of Studying Red Knot Genetics
“It’s such a human thing to do, isn’t it?”
Jesse Conklin, a bird ecologist and population geneticist, smiled wryly. We were talking about studying birds, and the totally weird things humans do so that we can better understand the totally routine things birds do. More specifically, we were talking about how we talk about bird species — how we go through the human exercise of dividing birds into species and subspecies.
“It’s a bit arbitrary, to be honest,” Conklin responded. “If you look at different taxa, like plants, people make those decisions differently. Or people who study slugs or crabs do it differently. There’s no universal acceptance of what a subspecies is and what the rules are and how different they should be because there is no one way that species act.”
It’s a totally human thing to want to know, to sort, to categorize, to acquire knowledge and then to put it to use. Part of the work of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is to do just that: To learn as much as we can about animals and their habitats and leverage that knowledge for conservation. To do that, we need words. We need descriptors — as accurate as possible — to help us all make sure we’re talking about the same thing.
You know that bird over there, the one with the long, tapered black beak, red-orange belly and gray, black, and white feathers? It lives at the beach and flies crazy-long distances? That’s a red knot.
0 Comments