Brenthis

Abstract: Species-level phylogeny of the Butterfly tribe Argynnini is established based on 141 characters derived from wing and genitalia morphology of both sexes. The Argynnini can be divided into three subtribes; Yrameina comprising Yramea and Boloria s.l., Argynnina comprising Prokuekenthaliella, Issoria, Brenthis, and all the ‘large fritillary’ species joined in the genus Argynnis s.l. and a new subtribe Euptoietina comprising only the genus Euptoieta. The classical genus Issoria s.l. is polyphyletic regarding Yramea and possibly paraphyletic regarding the two Afrotropic species baumanni and hanningtoni; these two species are tentatively transferred to the old genus/subgenus Prokuekenthaliella. Surprisingly, one Afrotropic species, Issoria smaragdifera is closely related to the East Palaearctic Issoria species. A revised classification of Argynnini is proposed based on the obtained phylogeny. Studies of larval host plants based on the obtained phylogeny suggest that the ancestral Argynnini used Passiflora and Violaceae, but already the ancestor of Yrameina + Argynnina was probably specialized on Violaceae. Whereas the Boloria species have turned to other food plants such as Dryas, Vaccinium and Salix on several occasions, only Brenthis among the Argynnina use other host plants than Viola (mainly Rosaceae). The habit of laying eggs away from the food plant has probably evolved twice within Argynnina. © 2006 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2006, 89, 627–673.

Abstract: 1. 1. The genetic relationship of the morphologically very similar butterflies, Brenthis daphne and B. ino , was examined by means of enzyme electrophoresis. 2. 2. Comparisons of allozyme data revealed lack of genic differentiation between them, indicating that their divergence might be a relatively recent event in the evolutionary history of these two chromosomally distinct species.

Abstract: Minimum viable site networks are crucial for many threatened species but their design is always a difficult procedure. The present study investigated methods to estimate habitat quality of patches, in an ecological network for five butterfly species (Brenthis ino, Clossiana selene, Lycaena helle, Lycaena hippothoe, Proclossiana eunomia) inhabiting wet meadows. Abundance predictions were performed on the basis of botanical releves with a multiple-species approach combining canonical correspondence analysis and multiple regression. Models are defined on a reference site set and are evaluated on a test site set. All the fitted models predicted the abundance of the butterfly species considerably well (from 61 to 86% of the variation). We evaluated the potential consequences of isolation on local populations, by comparing predicted and observed abundance. It was expected that greater differences would be observed when sites were more isolated. On the test set, differences between predicted and observed abundance were largely correlated to site isolation for L. helle and P. eunomia. The most isolated sites had greater chances to be empty, even if they had high-quality habitat. Reciprocally, when the sites were less isolated, the abundance observed was always greater than predicted, seeming to confirm the role of rescue effects. (C) 2003 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.