Environmental stress in Parnassius apollo reflected through wing geometric morphometrics in a historical collection with a possible connection to habitat degradation

Abstract

Monitoring climate changes and habitat degradation in threatened species without negative impact to the populations can pose a considerable challenge. A rare chance to test the morphological response of wing shape and size to environmental factors on the mountain Apollo (Parnassius apollo) collected from 1938 to 1968 at a single location – Strečno mountain pass, N Slovakia presented itself in a historical collection. The canonical variate analysis showed a significant shift from a narrower to broader forewing, with more extremes in either extra broad or narrow forewings in the post- 1960 population. Analysis of existing data was conducted to determine the possible factors affecting this change. Generally, the comparative statistics of temperature and precipitation to morphology of individuals and their fluctuating asymmetry showed no, or weak, correlations. Two extreme weather events (ECEs), identified using the historical weather data, show no correlation of wing morphology to these events. Although no strong correlations can be drawn in case of the available weather data and morphology, the results of this study can be connected to strong anthropogenic effects of a large-scale road development project taking place in the vicinity of the collection site starting in November 1959 causing changes in the available habitat and therefore a shift in the wing morphology.

Figure 7 from: Mikitová B, Šemeláková M, Panigaj Ľ (2022) Wing morphology and eyespot pattern of Erebia medusa (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) vary along an elevation gradient in the Carpathian Mountains. Nota Lepidopterologica 45: 233-250. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.45.68624

“…The intraspecific variability of wing morphology among the 100 samples (males) was analysed. All individuals were checked for measurement and digitisation errors, which were minimised (Štefánik and Fedor 2020). The results of ANOVA revealed statistically significant differences in wing length and width (length: F(2, 97) = 17.38, p ˂ 0.0001, width: F(2, 97) = 34.19, p ˂ 0.0001) between all sites (length and width: Tukey's post hoc test, Kojšovská hoľa (1246 m a. s. l) vs Dobroslava (335 m a. s. l), p ˂ 0.001; Kojšovská hoľa (1246 m a. s. l) vs Zlatá Idka (660 m a. s. l) p ˂ 0.001, with the exception of Dobroslava vs Zlatá Idka, which did not show significant differences in the length or width of the forewings (p = 0.702).…”

Figure 3 from: Mikitová B, Šemeláková M, Panigaj Ľ (2022) Wing morphology and eyespot pattern of Erebia medusa (Lepidoptera, Nymphalidae) vary along an elevation gradient in the Carpathian Mountains. Nota Lepidopterologica 45: 233-250. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.45.68624

“…The intraspecific variability of wing morphology among the 100 samples (males) was analysed. All individuals were checked for measurement and digitisation errors, which were minimised (Štefánik and Fedor 2020). The results of ANOVA revealed statistically significant differences in wing length and width (length: F(2, 97) = 17.38, p ˂ 0.0001, width: F(2, 97) = 34.19, p ˂ 0.0001) between all sites (length and width: Tukey's post hoc test, Kojšovská hoľa (1246 m a. s. l) vs Dobroslava (335 m a. s. l), p ˂ 0.001; Kojšovská hoľa (1246 m a. s. l) vs Zlatá Idka (660 m a. s. l) p ˂ 0.001, with the exception of Dobroslava vs Zlatá Idka, which did not show significant differences in the length or width of the forewings (p = 0.702).…”