on wing patterns

[Ron Gatrelle]

Also to all.

In the very broadest sense David is correct. There can absolutely be no
"variation" in wing patterns without genetic differences. However, what
stimulates or prompts certain genes to "manifest" ( including blank areas
on wings with no pattern at all because there are no scales to make a
pattern) is another matter. Custom car builders have to have two things. An
already manufactured model of car, and raw materials to alter it. Both are
necessary.

The term eco-type is a term that every taxonomist becomes aware of early
on. Wing patterns are often the result of genetic manifestation through
environmental stimulation. In other words, genes don't always have free
will. I call this: variation due to non-genetic will. The most common way
we see this is the long employed "trick" of breeders to subject about ready
to emerge butterfly pupae to sudden cold. All kinds of aberrations are
produced this way because it alters (customizes) the genetic mapping.

Ecotypes are not subspecies. If "subspecies" (A) from the California
desert, when reared in the environment and on the host of a sister
"subspecies" (B) from the San Francisco Bay area, produces adults whose
phenotype is basically identical to subspecies (B) then (A) is not a
subspecies. It is an ecotype - no matter how massive the range and
consistent the pattern of the desert population is. The same holds true for
altitudinal "forms".

There are, in my opinion, many "subspecies" is this world that are nothing
more than ecotypes. None of them should be recognized on THAT level.
This is why many more rearing experiments need to be carried out on
subspecific populations.

When I described the subspecies Pterourus troilus fakahatcheensis from the
southern tip of Florida last year, I mentioned in the original description
a rearing of this taxon that took place in the northeast US in the climate
of troilus troilus and on its northern host. The resultent adults looked
the same as their Florida parents. Then I also posted here of another
rearing of fakahatcheensis by Jeff Slotten last fall in Gainseville Fl. The
environmental  conditions were far from those in nature. In fact most of
the adults were dwarfed, but their phenotype was again typical
fakahatcheensis. Thus fakahateensis is not an eco-type. Its morphology is
due to its genotype. It is a unique evolutionary taxon that took thousands
of years to evolve. It is the most closely related troilus to palamedes
(see photo library at www.tils-ttr.org ).

Therefore, fakahatcheensis is not a "clinal" subspecies either, even though
there is an unbroken range northward with troilus troilus.  In the central
Fla portion of this range we find a mix of fakahatcheensis and troilus
phenotypes - this is not a cline becuase it is not a blend zone. (A blend
zone is divergent evolution - one species morph changing into another). The
population is central Fl is the manifestation of a tension zone. (A tension
zone is convergent evolution - two long separated species morphs now coming
into contact).

This is becoming long. I do not have the space here to rewrite everything
in all of my scientific papers. But...

There are clinal subspecies - I have described a couple (e.g. Satyrodes
appalachia leeuwi, 1974). This is the weakest level of subspecies
(phenotypic). The highest degree of subspecies is a phenosyncronic one.
This is the phase just before becoming a sibling species (although all
phensyncronic subspecies do not evolve on to become siblings). Pronounced
pheno-sync-ron-ic, it is a type of parallel evolution, but on the
subspecific level. Phenotypes evolve in sync while major environmental or
biological differences are evolving apart.

To long. So, so long.
Ron

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Webster" <david.h.webster at ns.sympatico.ca>
To: <Felix.Sperling at ualberta.ca>
Cc: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2001 8:21 PM
Subject: Re: P. joanae, Name Committees misconceptions


> Hi Felix and All,        Feb 3, 2001
>     Just a few pedestrian comments directed to no one in
> particular and
> not limited to leps; a condensed, I hope, reaction to this
> ongoing
> discussion--  and one question about a passage in your message.
>
>
> Felix Sperling wrote:
>
> >  and raises the possibility that wing pattern differences
> > are not a fail safe indicator of underlying genetic differences at
> > the level of geographic races.
> >
>
>     I don't understand how, in the absence of underlying genetic
> differences, there can be differences in wing pattern.
>
> >  Based on my experience in butterfly counts and with general
> > naturalists, I'm betting that the majority are irritated by or even
> > hostile toward the confusion between current guides.
>
>     Name changes, without apparent good reason, are annoying.
> Omission or
> bald mention of forms and subspecies is also an irritant. But
> from my
> viewpoint, the major irritant is the lack of practical and
> affordable
> guides to identification [e.g. Knull, 1951. The Checkered Beetles
> of
> Ohio, ~81 pp., $0.75 as example of a practical guide; keys, text
> and
> illustrations].
>     Today one can chose between original publications, in which
> illustrations are often limited to SEM images of genitalia, or
> picture
> books with almost no text; moths for dummies. Why has the middle
> ground
> [keys, text & figures] been left almost blank for ~50 years ?
>     Why do so few participants on Jeopardy and Who Wants to be a
> Millionaire know even simple biological questions ?  What does
> this say
> about where Taxonomists should place their priorities ?
> Yours truly, Dave Webster, Kentville, Nova Scotia
>
>
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