Patterns of Diversity and Processes of Speciation in Arctic Char

摘要

The following questions are discussed: disputable questions of Arctic char systematics and speciation; phenomena of ecological variability; sympatric groupings - the level of divergence, the ways of their origin; the species boundaries; a complex species as a population system of the highest hierarchic level. Divergence levels in the genus Salvelinus and the structure of endemic species; the rate of speciation in Arctic char; the patterns of modern diversity. General conclusion is: the majority of Arctic char forms are not species in statu nascendi. The complicated structure does not necessarily reflect the process of speciation and represents a quasistationary state of the interrupted divergence that is able to reverse. For the classification of such a structure, the concept of a species-complex is more applicable.