Shtinkov Nikolay, Kolev Zdravko, Vila Roger, Dincă Vlad
Department of Physics, University of Ottawa, 150 Louis Pasteur, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada.
National Museum of Natural History, 1 Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria.
Zoology (Jena). 2016 Feb;119(1):11-20. doi: 10.1016/j.zool.2015.12.003. Epub 2015 Dec 12.
The wood white butterfly Leptidea sinapis and its more recently discovered sibling species L. reali and L. juvernica have emerged as a model system for studying the speciation and evolution of cryptic species, as well as their ecological interactions in conditions of sympatry. Leptidea sinapis is widely distributed from Western Europe to Central Asia while the synmorphic L. juvernica and L. reali have allopatric distributions, both occurring in sympatry with L. sinapis and exhibiting an intricate, regionally variable ecological niche separation. Until now, the Balkan Peninsula remained one of the major unknowns in terms of distribution, genetic structure, and ecological preferences of the Leptidea triplet in Europe. We present new molecular and morphological data from a detailed survey of the region. Our DNA analysis suggests that the Balkan populations belong only to L. sinapis and L. juvernica, and that they are not genetically differentiated from other mainland populations. The distribution data reveal that L. sinapis is a widespread habitat generalist, while L. juvernica exhibits a transition from a habitat generalist in the western Balkans to a localised habitat specialist, confined to humid mountain habitats, in the east. The morphometric analysis of male genitalia and a comparison to data from other parts of the species' ranges suggest an interesting mosaic of regional morphological variation that is likely linked to environmental and ecological factors. We also demonstrate the usefulness of the genitalia scaling relations for analysing the morphological variation and discuss the implications for species identification.
白钩蛱蝶Leptidea sinapis及其最近发现的姐妹种L. reali和L. juvernica，已成为研究隐秘物种的物种形成与进化，以及它们在同域条件下生态相互作用的一个模型系统。白钩蛱蝶广泛分布于从西欧到中亚的地区，而形态相似的L. juvernica和L. reali具有异域分布，它们都与白钩蛱蝶同域出现，并表现出复杂的、区域可变的生态位分离。到目前为止，巴尔干半岛在欧洲白钩蛱蝶三姐妹的分布、遗传结构和生态偏好方面仍是主要的未知地区之一。我们展示了对该地区详细调查得出的新的分子和形态学数据。我们的DNA分析表明，巴尔干半岛的种群仅属于白钩蛱蝶和L. juvernica，并且它们在基因上与其他大陆种群没有差异。分布数据显示，白钩蛱蝶是一种广泛分布的栖息地泛化种，而L. juvernica则呈现出从巴尔干半岛西部的栖息地泛化种到东部局限于潮湿山地栖息地的局部栖息地特化种的转变。对雄性生殖器的形态测量分析以及与该物种其他分布区域数据的比较表明，存在一种有趣的区域形态变异镶嵌现象，这可能与环境和生态因素有关。我们还证明了生殖器比例关系在分析形态变异方面的有用性，并讨论了其对物种鉴定的意义。
