Demographic inferences and climatic niche modelling shed light on the evolutionary history of the emblematic cold‐adapted Apollo butterfly at regional scale

Abstract

The Pleistocene cold periods in the northern hemisphere have been major drivers of species current distribution. During glaciations, many temperate taxa were restricted to southern ice-free refuges (Hewitt, 1996;Taberlet et al., 1998), and the present distribution of most species in Europe is the result of northward recolonization from those southern refuges after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), about 21 kya (Strandberg et al., 2011). Under this scenario, populations underwent strong bottlenecks during glacial periods

Phylogeny and Biogeographic History of Parnassius Butterflies (Papilionidae: Parnassiinae) Reveal Their Origin and Deep Diversification in West China

“…These distributional changes correlated with the host plants of Parnassius butterflies—that is, Rhodiola (Crassulaceae), as shown in previous studies [ 60 ], originated in the QTP and diversified during the Middle Miocene, whereas another family of host plants (Saxifragaceae) spread from Eastern Asia to Western Asia and Northeast Asia [ 69 ]. Moreover, the expansion process of Parnassius butterflies has been proven by previous studies on single-species phylogeography (for example, P. apollo (Linnaeus, 1758) [ 18 , 70 ], P. phoebus [ 71 ], and P. glacialis [ 17 ]), although these species might show different patterns of expansion and contraction caused by glacial–interglacial cycles during the Quaternary period.…”

“…These butterflies are highly sensitive to environmental change, and thus, their phylogeographical structure is considered to reflect climate-driven range shifts; their geographic ranges or connectivity expands during glacial periods, whereas it reduces during interglacial periods due to the interruption of the gene flow [ 15 , 16 ]. Parnassius has recently attracted much attention as a model organism of alpine invertebrates in the investigation of climate change effects on organisms in the Northern Hemisphere [ 17 , 18 ].…”

Impact of Holocene environmental change on the evolutionary ecology of an Arctic top predator

“…Dietary tracer analysis of stable carbon (δ 13 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N) isotope data and ecological models can provide important additional information for determining biotic and abiotic drivers of past demographic change (29,30). Stable isotopes can elucidate current population-specific foraging behaviour and regional primary productivity (31), while ecological models can be used to reveal shifts in the size and area of ecologically suitable habitats in response to climate and environmental changes (7,30). The incorporation of morphological data can be used to consolidate evolutionary and ecological insights, as changes in morphological phenotype can be shaped by both genetics and the environment (32).…”

“…However, it is difficult to elucidate the drivers underpinning these changes using genetics alone. Dietary tracer analysis of stable carbon (δ 13 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N) isotope data and ecological models can provide important additional information for determining biotic and abiotic drivers of past demographic change (29,30). Stable isotopes can elucidate current population-specific foraging behaviour and regional primary productivity (31), while ecological models can be used to reveal shifts in the size and area of ecologically suitable habitats in response to climate and environmental changes (7,30).…”

Back to the future: Climate change effects on habitat suitability of Parnassius apollo throughout the Quaternary glacial cycles

“…Parnassius representatives have already been used on local scales as examples of specialists to highlight the importance of host plant range (Filazzola et al, 2020) and biotic interactions as crucial to predict species distribution under climate change scenarios (Araújo & Luoto, 2007; Wisz et al, 2013). To better evaluate the effects of host plants availability as a predictor in estimating habitat suitability, we decided to work on a much larger spatial scale (continental) than previous P. apollo (Kebaïli et al, 2022; Martínez et al, 2018) or P. smintheus (Doubleday, 1847) (Filazzola et al, 2020) studies that were developed at smaller scales (Massif Central and Rocky Mountains, respectively). In addition, to determine how interglacial–glacial cycles affected the suitable areas of a cold‐adapted species such as P .…”