Phylogenetic relationships in brown argus butterflies (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae: Aricia) from northwestern Europe

Abstract

Lycaenid butterflies of the Aricia agestisartaxerxes complex pose an unresolved taxonomic and conservation problem in northwestern Europe. Two key issues require resolution: (i) how many species of Aricia occur in northwestern Europe and what are their distributions?; (ii) how is the morphological variation observed in northwestern Europe best explained? We investigated phylogenetic relationships and phylogeographic patterns in this species group using mitochondrial and nuclear markers in comparison with morphological variation. A 325 bp fragment of the mitochondrial cytochromeb gene was sequenced from 179 individuals representing 18 populations from the UK and Scandinavia. Seventeen enzymecoding loci were analysed from 538 individuals from the same populations. Highly congruent phylogenies between mitochondrial and allozyme markers demonstrate that the sample is composed of two closely related species, A. agestis and A. artaxerxes. Both marker types also suggest that Scottish and northern Scandinavian A. artaxerxes populations are conspecific, and consequently do not support the endemic status of A. artaxerxes in the UK. The subspecies division of British populations of A. artaxerxes is also not supported by phylogenetic analyses. Allozyme and mitochondrial analyses cluster two populations from the Peak District, UK, differently. The former suggests that they are A. artaxerxes whilst the latter suggests they are A. agestis. Further research is required to find the reason for this disagreement, which could be associated with the different dynamics of nuclear and mitochondrial genes across a hybrid zone between the two species. © 2002 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2002, 75, 27–37.

Evaluation of economically important traits from sixteen parental strains of the silkworm Bombyx mori L (Lepidoptera: Bombycidae)

“…Several studies related to the use of productivity markers (Fragoso et al 2003, Marco Jr et al 2005 and morphological dissimilarity (Aagaard et al 2002, Pilgrim et al 2002, Dujardin & Le Pont 2004, Arruda et al 2007 as indicators of the best strains for breeding.…”

Distribution and Conservation of Genetic Diversity Among UK Calcareous Grassland Regions: A Case Study Using Insects

“…Nei's (1978) genetic distances in (a) Adscita geryon, (b) Aricia agestis among calcareous grassland regions across the UK. A. artaxerxes, which has a more northerly distribution (Aagaard et al 2002). Table 3 shows that most of the high genetic distances are recorded between the Peak District and other regions, suggesting a potentially misleading structure based on allozyme frequencies that is not supported by the mtDNA data.…”

“…Aricia agestis (brown argus butterfly; Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) is characteristic of southern chalk and limestone grassland but occurs in a variety of other open habitats with disturbed soils, including coastal grassland and dunes, woodland clearings, heathland, disused railway lines, road verges, and more recently set-aside fields. The distribution of Aricia agestis extends as far north as north Wales and Yorkshire (Aagaard et al 2002). Aphthona herbigrada (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) is a species of Aphthonini distributed over England and Scotland and feeds on Helianthemum but otherwise its ecology is relatively unknown.…”

Controversial patterns of Wolbachia infestation in the social parasitic Maculinea butterflies (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)

“…On the one hand, the allozymes do not show differentiation between the phenological forms. Although allozyme diversity of Maculinea species is generally low compared with other lycaenids (Schmitt et al 2003;Schmitt and Hewitt 2004;Aagaard et al 2002), it is suitable for species separation in this genus (Pecsenye et al 2007). On the other hand, although these forms harbour the same strain, we could not detect mito-nuclear discordance and significant deviation from the neutral model of molecular evolution.…”