ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[GuateGojira]

(09-18-2017, 05:30 AM)peter Wrote: Title - 'A REVISED TAXONOMY OF THE FELIDAE'

Source - CATnews, No. 11, winter 2017 

Contributions - Kitchener (AC), Breitenmoller-Wursten (CH), Eizirik (E), Gentry (A), Werdelin (L), Wilting (A), Yamaguchi (N), Abramov (AV), Christiansen (P), Driscoll ©, Duckworth (JW), Johnson (W), Luon (S-J), Meijaard (E), O'Donoghue (P), Sanderson (J), Seymour (K), Bruford (M), Groves ©, Hoffmann (M), Nowell (K), Timmons (Z) and Tobe (S) 

Magazin - CATnews is the newsletter of the Cat Specialist Group, a component of the Special Survival Commission SSC of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is published twice a year, and is available to members and the friends of the Cat Group

Link - https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/handle/10088/32616/A_revised_Felidae_Taxonomy_CatNews.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Introduction - The main task of the IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group is the continuous review of the conservation status of all cat species and subspecies according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species process. A critical subject in this task is the systematic classification of the cat family, the Felidae. The taxonomy of cats has undergone considerable changes in the past, not only at the level of species and subspecies, but even at the level of genus.

The classification presently used by the Cat Specialist Group was published in 'Wild Cats - Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan' edited by K. Nowell and P. Jackson (published by IUCN 1996) and is based on the state of research in the early 1990's. Since then mainly studies more advanced morphological, biogeographical, and, foremost, molecular techniques have provided new insights into cat phylogeny and variation, suggesting several important changes with regard to species and subspecies, and the evolutionary relationships between genera and species.

These changes may impact on the Red List process and on the listing of taxonomic units in international treaties and national legislation. Therefore the classification used by IUCN institutions has significance beyond the Red List. The Cat Specialist Group initiated a review of the present taxonomic system of the Felidae by an expert group, the Cat Classification Task Force CCTF. Their terms of relevance were endorsed by Dr Simon Stuart, IUCN/SSC Chair 2008-2016

Goal - The CCTF presents, on behalf of the Cat Specialist Group and the IUCN Red List Unit, and based on the best science and expert knowledge presently available, an updated and practical classification of the Felidea, including genera, species and subspecies and the most likely geographical ranges of all taxa

Advice - Must read

Wildfact - The results of a number of recent studies have been discussed in the recent past by Guate Gojira in this thread and a few others. I will post a number of scans soon.

I still remember the first time that I read this document. A few days after that you put it here in the forum and the reactions were few but important.

It is not a secret that I am of the idea that Dr Kitchener have a point that the "subspecies" of tigers are not based in good descriptions or good samples. In fact, new genetic studies and morphological analysis from skulls do not support the old classifications. I think that this new approach will be very useful for conservation as at this time, there are only 5 wild populations that are more or less viable for the long term: Indian subcontinent, Russia, Sumatra, Malaysia and Thailand. The last three are greatly endangered and the only one that have enough captive population for a correct recovery, of this 3, is the Sumatran population.

I will like to make a very good post explaining the reasons why I think that the creation of "subspecies" is actually not helping in tiger conservation. For example, if take a look to the difference between Bengal and Thailand tigers, there is practically nothing to separate them, the coat patterns and almost the same and in fact, there is more difference between the Indian populations than between Thailand and Central Indian tigers, just to give an example. Also in the size issue, the records of size of Indochinese tigers are ridiculously small and is almost impossible to get a good comparison between them and the large sample from the Indian population; also the sizes overlap a lot and the largest specimens seems to be of the same size. It is true that Mazák found differences between them, but using modern methods, this differences seems only clinal and not enough to separate them as "subspecies". The same happen with the Sonda populations, as with a careful look, the difference between Sumatran, Javan and Bali tigers are close to none. I will go deeper on this in the future.

However I will like to add that this new approach must be analyzed very carefully, because although this means that there is no "difference" between Bengal and Amur tiger at "subspecies" level, Wilting et al., 2015 clearly specified that the distance between these two populations support its separation as different "management units", which means that it will be correct to keep them separated as they form separate evolutionary units with different adaptations in its morphology and genetic. In this line of ideas, the captive tigers that are a mix between Bengal and Amur tigers are NOT useful for conservation as they represent different conservation units and the mix between Bengal-Sumatran or Amur-Sumatran are even worst. In few words, this classification, correctly understood, is NOT a open door for the free use of mixed tigers at all.

More details in the future. Greetings to all. Reply