Influence of landscape on the population genetic structure of the alpine butterfly Parnassius smintheus (Papilionidae)

Abstract

Four microsatellite DNA markers were developed which were used to examine the relationship between landscape and population genetic structure among a set of populations of the butterfly Parnassius smintheus located in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. Detailed information on the dispersal of adult butterflies among this same set of populations was available. Simple and partial Mantel tests were used to examine the relationships between genetic distances, predicted rates of dispersal, and a number of landscape variables, all measured pairwise for 17 sample sites. Nei's standard genetic distance was negatively correlated with predicted dispersal. We observed a significant pattern of isolation by distance at a very small spatial scale. The distance between sites that was through forest was a stronger predictor of genetic distance than the distance through open meadow, indicating a significant effect of landscape on population genetic structure beyond that of simple isolation by distance. Our results suggest that rises in the tree-line in alpine areas, caused by global warming, will lead to reduced gene flow among populations of P. smintheus.

Parnassius apollo nevadensis: identification of recent population structure and source–sink dynamics

“…In particular, in other Parnassius sp. populations studied with microsatellite loci (MeglŽcz et al 1998;Keyghobadi et al 1999Keyghobadi et al , 2002Petenian et al 2005), the observed heterozygosity ranges between 0.33Ð0.68, a range into which our results fit well.…”

Connectivity rescues genetic diversity after a demographic bottleneck in a butterfly population network

“…DNA was extracted from wingclips using a DNeasy Blood and Tissue Kit (QIAgen), with a final elution volume of 200 μL. Each sample was genotyped at seven highly variable microsatellite loci (28,29). PCR amplification of microsatellites occurred in two multiplex amplifications (multiplex 1: Ps 50, Ps 81, and Ps 85; multiplex 2: Ps 76 and Ps 163) and two individual locus amplifications (Ps 262 and Ps 165).…”

“…using . Homozygote excess at these loci is known to be a result of null alleles (28,29), which are nonamplifying alleles that result from variation in microsatellite flanking regions. Null allele frequencies were estimated, and frequencies of other alleles were simultaneously reestimated, using the ENA method in the software FreeNA (32).…”

“…For TPM, two values (10,30) were tested for the variance of the geometric distribution with a low probability of single-step mutations (70%). We did not include the strictly stepwise mutational model (SMM), because it is inappropriate here due to the occurrence of flanking-sequence insertions or deletions (28,29).…”

Evolutionary dynamics of multilocus microsatellite arrangements in the genome of the butterfly Bicyclus anynana, with implications for other Lepidoptera

“…This is primarily caused by the frequent occurrence of null alleles (Cassel, 2002;Jiggins et al, 2005;Van't Hof et al, 2005). There is substantial evidence that many null alleles in Lepidoptera are caused either by mutations in primer binding sites resulting in unsuccessful PCR, or by indels that produce alleles with PCR fragment sizes which fall outside the standard detection range (Palo et al, 1995;Keyghobadi et al, 1999;Reddy et al, 1999;Flanagan et al, 2002;Jiggins et al, 2005). Therefore, this relatively high flanking sequence variability, that manifests itself as null alleles, is in part responsible for the low yields.…”