LOCAL RACES AND CLINES IN THE MARINE 



GASTROPOD THMS LAMELLOSA GMEUN 



A POPULATION STUDY 



BY TREVOR KINCAID 

 University of Washington 



INTRODUCTION 



In recent years considerable attention has been directed to 

 the study of infraspecific variation in animals. Such studies 

 have not only created a revolution in the field of taxonomy, 

 but have also thrown considerable light upon the nature of 

 the evolutionary process itself, which since the time of Darwin 

 has proved a baffling problem. In the case of birds the rein- 

 terpretation of the group from this standpoint has led to the 

 reduction in the number of recognized species in the world 

 list from about 27,000 to approximately 8,500. The remain- 

 ing trivial names either have been placed in the synonymy or 

 reduced to the status of subspecies. In the mammals a corres- 

 ponding reduction has taken place. Twenty-eight species of 

 Peromyscus have been reduced to one, while the single species 

 Tbomomys hottae is saddled with 150 subspecific names (Burt, 

 1954), indicating that in this case we apparently are giving 

 trinomial designations to local races. Similar reductions in the 

 trivial names applied to the other groups of vertebrates have 

 taken place, while the invertebrate phyla are being gradually 

 subjected to the same type of critical analysis. 



It is becoming increasingly evident that the Linnaean sys- 

 tem of nomenclature, while it has served its purpose over the 

 years, is ill adapted to express the relationships of organisms 

 in the ever moving drama of organic evolution. To the older 

 school of taxonomists the living world appeared as a static 

 system only awaiting description; we now know that we are 

 compelled to deal with situations that are highly dynamic and 

 cannot be described in terms of traditional systematics. 



SOuiid 



