Boloria frigga

Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
Tue Nov 20 16:39:10 EST 2001


Very helpful and interesting observations. This reminds me of the issue of
Beringia and the role it played in the evolution of the various organisms
that now live on both sides of the Bering Strait. It is one thing to
consider the option of everything that looks kinda similar from Europe to
Labrador as being one species. It is another thing to consider the option
that there are two species on two continents, and maybe three if one looks
at the disjunctions of some "species" in northern europe vs futher east in
Asia. But both of these interpretations may still be too simplistic due to
the complications of Beringia.  For all anyone knows there could be
Beringian species that are presently treated as Beringian subspecies (eg.
Papilio alaskensis, Glaucopsyche kurnakovi) or not even recognized at the
subspecies level due to preconceived and unscientific notions that dismiss
"minor" phenotypic differences as not being important. I frequently chuckle
when I hear people without any apparent exertise in a group of butterflies
pooh-pooh a subspecies name created by someone who has developed some
knowledge of the organism. Species as biological and evolutionary entities
are not defined by the scale of visual differences to our human eyes -- they
are defined by a shared gene pool that has evolved separately from other
organisms and there may or may not be huge visual differences as seen
through our simple human eyes that only perceive a very small part of the
electromagnetic spectrum. Just some more stray thoughts ---

-----Original Message-----
From: Kenelm Philip [mailto:fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 12:50 PM
To: leps-l at lists.yale.edu
Subject: Boloria frigga



	European populations of _frigga_ are distinct, in having a "broad
band of pale spots on the underside of the secondaries", not only from
North American '_frigga_' but also from western Beringian _frigga_. I have
series from Chukotka which run very close to Alaskan _frigga gibsoni_ and
_alaskensis_, and in which that band of spots on the VHW is not pale. If
the holarctic range of '_frigga_' needs to be broken into more than one
species, one of the breaks will occur between Europe and eastern Asia, and
I doubt there will be a break at the Bering Straits. Whether taiga and
tundra _frigga_ in Alaska and the Yukon are the same species is another
problem. In Chukotka, the habitat for _frigga_ is identical to its habitat
in the Alaskan tundra, so I'm inclined to think the Beringian tundra
taxon is one species.

	I have not seen series from many sites in Europe--so I don't know
whether there is variation in the paleness of those VHW spots within
Europe. I might hesitate to split off an allopatric species based on such
a single character--but it would be interesting to know how the European
population (if consistent across Europe) grades into the Asian populations.

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at uaf.edu





 
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