[leps-talk] Polygonia gracilis

[Niklas Wahlberg]

There is a recent article by my collaborators here in Stockholm:
Nylin S, Nyblom K, Ronquist F, Janz N, Belicek J, Källersjö M (2001) 
Phylogeny of Polygonia, Nymphalis and related butterflies (Lepidoptera: 
Nymphalidae): a total-evidence analysis. Zool J Linn Soc 132:441-468
Basically they show that faunus is the sister species to the Palaearctic 
Polygonia c-album with very strong support. Their analysis of DNA and 
morphological characters show that gracilis (they had a zephyrus in their 
molecular data set) is the sister to progne, but that this relationship is 
not very strongly supported. I have sequenced a different gene from the 
same individuals and get the same patterns, ie faunus is the sister species 
to c-album. However I find that zephyrus/oreas is sister to satyrus, and 
this group is then sister to progne. I have lots of faunus, zephyrus, oreas 
and satyrus waiting to be sequenced. I unfortunately have only the one 
progne and no gracilis gracilis samples, but I'm trying to get them...

Cheers,
Niklas

At 09:53 23.01.2002 -0500, Grkovich, Alex wrote:
>Here in the northeast, gracilis (which is uncommon) is quite distinct from
>progne (which is not uncommon in the Canadian Zone but rare southward) and
>from faunus (which can be abundant in the Canadian Zone). However, females
>of faunus often appear to lack the green spots and then become surprisingly
>difficult to distinguish (at least to me) from female gracilis. My
>observation, this is that faunus and gracilis are more closely related than
>either to progne. Am I correct in anyone's opinion.
>
>Here, a good field mark for gracilis (beside the usual characters), at least
>in the males, is the presence of some whitish scales near the FW and HW
>apical areas.
>
>There was a record of "zephyrus" from the upper peninsula of Michigan.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Niklas Wahlberg [SMTP:Niklas.Wahlberg at zoologi.su.se]
> > Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2002 3:45 AM
> > To:   Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX; 'lepstalk'; 'lepsl'
> > Subject:      Re: [leps-talk] Polygonia gracilis
> >
> > Very interesting observations! I've sequenced a couple of zephyrus from
> > Wyoming, but unfortunately I don't have any gracilis at the moment. An
> > interesting observation from my data (which is super preliminary) is that
> > zephyrus and oreas are forming a clade to the exclusion of satyrus and
> > progne! So what it looks like is that oreas has nothing to do with progne
> > (oreas is sometimes considred a subspecies of progne). Now I need to
> > sequence the zephyrus and oreas from BC (that you Norbert kindly sent) and
> >
> > to get some gracilis and more progne to see if these preliminary patterns
> > hold up. These difficult species groups are just too cool! Full of
> > surprises they are!
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Niklas
> >
> > At 11:27 22.01.2002 -0800, Kondla, Norbert FOR:EX wrote:
> > >There are the usual variety of interpretations in the literature re.
> > whether
> > >or not gracilis and zephyrus are one or two species. I have gone around
> > the
> > >mulberry bush on this issue a good deal over the years and have examined
> > >hundreds of specimens from most parts of the range of these butterflies.
> > I
> > >can sleep well at night with the view that there is one species.  In
> > >southern British Columbia and in SW Alberta there is tremendous variation
> > in
> > >appearance (including within individual populations) and I have not been
> > >able to draw any neat geographic lines where one entity stops and the
> > other
> > >starts.  I have placed images of just three of the phenotypic variants
> > that
> > >fly in my local area on http://www.norbert.eboard.com
> > >Have a boo if you are interested; do not worry if some of the thumbnails
> > >come up black; just click on the thumbnail anyway and the full image will
> > >appear. Enjoy :-)
> > >
> > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >Norbert Kondla  P.Biol., RPBio.
> > >Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management
> > >845 Columbia Avenue, Castlegar, British Columbia V1N 1H3
> > >Phone 250-365-8610
> > >Mailto:Norbert.Kondla at gems3.gov.bc.ca
> > >http://www.env.gov.bc.ca
> > >
> > >
> > >TILS Motto: "We can not protect that which we do not know." © 1999
> > >
> > >TO post: TILS-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com
> > >Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TILS-leps-talk/messages
> > >To unsubscribe: TILS-leps-talk-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >
> > Niklas Wahlberg
> > Department of Zoology
> > Stockholm University
> > S-106 91 Stockholm
> > SWEDEN
> >
> > Phone: +46 8 164047
> > Fax:   +46 8 167715
> >
> > http://www.zoologi.su.se/research/wahlberg/
> >
> >
> > TILS Motto: "We can not protect that which we do not know." © 1999
> >
> > TO post: TILS-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com
> > Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TILS-leps-talk/messages
> > To unsubscribe: TILS-leps-talk-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
> >

Niklas Wahlberg
Department of Zoology
Stockholm University
S-106 91 Stockholm
SWEDEN

Phone: +46 8 164047
Fax:   +46 8 167715

http://www.zoologi.su.se/research/wahlberg/


 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl