Ring species as evidence for speciation

Have not found the reference I thought I had. I did find this on the web:
http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~irwin/PDFs/IrwinIrwin&Price2001It is a PDF file article on ring species in general and the relation to speciation.If you search the document for "cichlid" you will find 3 references at the end that you may want to track down.

The greenish warblers, five subspecies of which form a ring clear around Tibet, are like that. The two subspecies that meet in Russia don't recognize each other's songs and don't interbreed, where the others all intergrade at their borders. I've posted on them somewhere here in the past, or I can find the reference again if you'd like.Added by edit:
http://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~irwin/Greenish%20warblers.html
does nicely...This message has been edited by Coragyps, 01-14-2005 19:45 AM

my understanding was wrong originally. my last reference has information on the green warbler, and I am gradually wading through it.I thought all adjacent species were capable of interbreeding, kind of like a quick expansion of a species into a ring around some feature that would physically block diagonal interchange but allow adjacent interchange all the way around, with genetic divergence gradually causing diagonal species to be incompatable (like an open ring species mirrored).the question is on the "circular overlap" or ring species versions talked about are just the end results non-breeding or does that extend down each leg significantly?

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the case for dogs being a ring species is interesting as what you have is a broad matrix of size and behavior that would be more like an area (map?) than a linear (ring) relationship: it is still possible that varieties on the borders are not interfertile with others on the other side of the "map" and it should also be possible to test the amount of genetic flow between varieties with DNA studies.sounds like a potential thesis subject to me.

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{added by edit}
it also seems to me that this would hold for any species population to some extent, just that it is most extreme in the canines due to human interference. modeling it could add some interesting insights into general population behaviors and speciation potentials.thanks.This message has been edited by RAZD, 01-14-2005 20:32 AM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Loved the article (especially the bird songs links ... I'm a birder ), so thanks again. From your article: Lower elevation with further north range would be logical in terms of keeping to a similar temperature range I would think, and smaller body size with similar response to climate changes and increased distance needed to migrate ... ie -- both varieties are responding in the same way to the same stimulus for change and selection is giving similar results.Gosh, genetics, behavior, plumage, songs, all follow the same patterns? What a surprise eh?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
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The folks that published previously on the greenish warblers have some new work out: Irwin, et al., Science, Vol 307, 414-416, 21 January 2005. It gets into genetic measures of how all the warblers in the ring differ, and find that, sure enough, the two northernmost subspecies differ the most, even though their ranges overlap.

cool. do they address the "gap" in china and specifically tie the genetic differences there to be consistent with the whole pattern?

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

The gap is apparently from recent habitat destruction - birds to either side of it overlap genetically as much as any of the other southern neighbors, judging from the published graphs. Whether they mean "recent" as "Holocene" or as "in the past few centuries" isn't clear.

great. that was one area I was a little concerned about on this species.perhaps we just need more information on the degree of change over time on these species to see how recent "recent" is