Probably no one other than me ever called this concept The Melting Snowpatch Model. Derochers & Bohm (1995) called it lineage shattering, but I would like to use that term to also include the next model. There may be also discussions of the Melting Snowpatch model as "variable refugia". Call it what you like, a widespread variable taxon becomes fragmented into small patches. Perhaps this might occur at the end of an iceage when the land between the mountain ranges becomes to arid to support some species with higher water requirements. Without gene flow between them, they get randomly fixed for combinations of the variation that existed in the parental population. The result might be taxa that seem like they should be separate species, but it is never clear what characters go with which species.

If you are truely offended enough by my application of terminology, you can complain about me to my major professor, Dr. T. Lowrey.