P. glaucus and P. canadensis

[Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX]

Yes, for sure. There is nothing in the biological species concept as I
understand it that prohibits some hybridization and exchange of genetic
material in contact areas of mostly allopatric taxa.  If we used the
criteria of any hybridization/genetic exchange as proof of conspecific
status then we would need to treat L. lorquini and L. weydemeyerii as
conspecific with L. arthemis. and worse yet we would need to throw Papilio
zelicaon in the large 'machaon' species pot, and also throw P. rutulus in
with canadensis etc etc. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris J. Durden [mailto:drdn at mail.utexas.edu]
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 1:58 PM
To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: P. glaucus and P. canadensis


Look for introgression in *P. p. asterius* and *P. brevicauda* in the 
marshes along the St. Lawrence. My clue is in minor variation that I found 
in *asterius* on Ile Perrot QU.
   The Lyman Collection (formerly at Redpath Museum, McGill U., now at 
Macdonald College) had/has? a Labrador specimen that looks like a good 
*brevicauda* X *aliaska* mix!
   Just because species can introgress does not mean that they are not good 
functioning species.
..............Chris Durden

At 07:12 AM 6/7/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Re. the question about P. machaon and P. brevicauda. Yes, apparently some
>people think that these are the same species.  What little I know about
this
>one is that the rational for this interpretation is the level of chemical
>similarity in the gene segments that have been sequenced to date. Other
>people of course hold a different view. To me they are such grossly
>different looking insects that I see absolutely no reason to treat them as
>one species.  Using chemical similarity to lump these species is akin to
>using genitalic similarity to to lump different species (eg. boloria
>distincta and B. astarte). I would want to see evidence of a fairly broad
>zone of character intergradation between machaon and brevicauda before
>viewing same species status as a reasonable interpretation. Interestingly,
>another researcher has published his reasons for the interpretation that we
>do not even have P. machaon in North America. A structural difference in
the
>egg micropyle was one of the criteria for that interpretation.  There are
no
>simple answers to these kind of taxonomic issues of what is a subspecies
>versus a species. different people have different definitions and criteria.
>different people will interpret the same data in different ways.  One can
>chose to simple accept the latest published rationale for a particular
>interpretation or one can chose to examine the available evidence and form
>ones own interpretation. I use the latter approach as much as possible -
but
>it is time consuming to use this approach.



 
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