CK,
Thanks for the explanation but due to my lack of background, it is still not all that clear.

There is one large disconnect in our thinking regarding C. bottle distribution when you mention, "At the time of Rodriguez-Robles et al.’s paper, there was indeed a break in the distribution of the rubber boa in the vicinity of Lassen National Park."

The notion that a break existed in the distribution of the species in the Mt. Lassen region at the time of Javier' study is not rational but was due to a lack of available finer scale sampling. In other words, the authors reached an erroneous conclusion simply because tissue was only available from boas that occurred at considerable distance from one another. If the only tissue available had been from vouchers near Mt Hood in Oregon and Lake Tahoe, it would be just as irrational to claim that a break in the distribution of the species exists from near Mt. Hood to Lake Tahoe.

So as they do not repeat the same error, I have already mentioned to Glenn and Rick that they need to exercise caution when making interpretations where large gaps exist between related haplotypes because the tendency is conclude that such a gaps are real. An equal or even more likely explanation is that such gaps are due to short comings in sampling as was the case in Javier's study.

I recently received a copy of the MP consensus tree for the new mtDNA study. On a large scale, the result duplicate and confirm Javier's results of three major groupings or subclades. On a finer scale, there occurs some new results that conflict with conclusions reached by Javier. But that is to be expect in research and it will be of interest how these new results are interpreted.

Richard F. Hoyer

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