> However, the forewing venation alone (Francoy et al. 2008;Tofilski 2008) or even shape of single wing cell (Francoy et al. 2006) > can provide enough information for the identification.
and
> Particularly strong agreement occurred between methods based on morphometrics and microsatellites. There is no clear answer
> which of the two methods is more accurate because the true assignment of workers to subspecies remains unknown.

Interesting!  This seems to disagree with findings by Moritz (previously quoted by Jon Getty) and recent work by Catherine Thompson in the UK (although we are still waiting for papers from her).

> There are no objective criteria for distinguishing between pure subspecies and hybrids. The identification requires the use of
> threshold values which are to some degree arbitrary.

Perhaps this is because Adam Tofilski uses geographic wing morphometry rather than relying on a plot of CI against DsA?  I use his DrawWing to obtain values of CI and DsA and then plot these using an Excel spreadsheet.   The tightness of the grouping of the plots indicates the degree of purity or hybridisation quite clearly in my view.

> Particularly strong agreement occurred between methods based on morphometrics and microsatellites. There is no clear answer
> which of the two methods is more accurate because the true assignment of workers to subspecies remains unknown.

Not quite sure what the second part of this statement means.  DNA and morphometric work has been done using museum specimens of what one would assume (dangerous word) to be 'pure' A.m.m., so why is this a problem?

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W
(busily programming his spellchecker to replace 'race' with 'subspecies' - which might produce some interesting sentences!)

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