Department of Biological Sciences, CW 405 Biological Sciences Centre, University of Alberta Edmonton, AB T6G 2E9, Canada.
Ecol Evol. 2011 Oct;1(2):119-31. doi: 10.1002/ece3.11.
Identification of widespread species collected from islands can be challenging due to the potential for local ecological and phenotypic divergence in isolated populations. We sought to determine how many species of the spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana) complex reside in Cypress Hills, an isolated remnant coniferous forest in western Canada. We integrated data on behavior, ecology, morphology, mitochondrial DNA, and simple sequence repeats, comparing Cypress Hills populations to those from other regions of North America to determine which species they resembled most. We identified C. fumiferana, C. occidentalis, C. lambertiana, and hybrid forms in Cypress Hills. Adult flight phenology and pheromone attraction were identified as key life-history traits involved in maintaining the genomic integrity of species. Our study highlights the importance of extensive sampling of both specimens and a variety of characters for understanding species boundaries in biodiversity research.
由于孤立种群中潜在的局部生态和表型差异，鉴定从岛屿上采集的广泛分布的物种可能具有挑战性。我们试图确定在加拿大西部的一个孤立的针叶林——柏树山，有多少种云杉卷叶蛾（Choristoneura fumiferana）复合体栖息。我们综合了行为、生态、形态、线粒体 DNA 和简单重复序列的数据，将柏树山的种群与北美其他地区的种群进行比较，以确定它们最相似的物种。我们在柏树山发现了云杉卷叶蛾、西部云杉卷叶蛾、美洲白松卷叶蛾和杂交种。成虫的飞行物候和信息素吸引力被确定为维持物种基因组完整性的关键生活史特征。我们的研究强调了在生物多样性研究中，广泛采集标本和多种特征对于理解物种界限的重要性。
