Volume 7, Number 1—February 2001
Synopsis
Geographic Subdivision of the Range of the Malaria Parasite, Plasmodium vivax
Figure 3

Figure 3. The sequence of Plasmodium vivax from the Americas is distinguished from Old World isolates by analysis of the 3' end of the S-type rRNA gene. The S-type rRNA sequences were determined from cloned amplified products of parasite DNA and RNA.
¹The biologic diversity inherent in P. vivax already justifies the use of a trinomial system for naming its members that includes the designation of subspecies, a taxonomic character given formal recognition in the International Rules of Zoological Nomenclature. A subspecies is a population or group of populations inhabiting a geographic subdivision of the range of a species and differing from other populations by diagnostic morphologic characteristics.
²The designation of separate species does not require that the two organisms cannot mate and produce viable progeny, only that this does not happen with frequency in natural situations.