Allozyme variation in Polyommatus coridon (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae): identification of ice-age refugia and reconstruction of post-glacial expansion
Abstract
AimThe effects of glacial disjunctions on intraspecific differentiations are in the focus of phylogeographical studies. Several studies investigate the consequences of post-glacial expansions from glacial refugia on the composition within major genetic lineages.Location and methodsWe analysed the geographical pattern of allozyme variation of twenty loci of Polyommatus coridon (Poda, 1761) (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) from thirty-six localities spread throughout large regions of its European range. A total of 1566 individuals were analysed.ResultsWe obtained a significant genetic differentiation (FST 0.060 ± 0.007). Further analyses showed a division into two major genetic lineages with a mean genetic distance (Nei, 1978) of 0.041 (± 0.010 SD). Applying an AMOVA, more than three quarters of the variance between populations was between these lineages and less than one quarter within these lineages. Both genetic lineages showed a significant decline in the number of alleles from southern to northern populations. Furthermore, we found a contact zone of these two major genetic lineages in eastern Central Europe extending throughout north-eastern Germany, then following the mountain regions along the Czech-German border and passing through the eastern Alps in a north-south direction.Main conclusionsWe assume that this differentiation evolved during the last ice-age as a result of isolation in the Adriato- and the Ponto-Mediterranean region. The loss of genetic diversity from the south to the north within both lineages reflects the decline of diversity during the post-glacial expansion.
- Publication:
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Journal of Biogeography
- Pub Date:
- September 2001
- DOI:
- 10.1046/j.1365-2699.2001.00621.x
- Bibcode:
- 2001JBiog..28.1129S