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Adonis Blue - a recent UK colonist?
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:45 pm
by Matsukaze
Link to research suggesting all British Adonis Blues are descended from one, or a handful of, female butterflies in the eighteenth century:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/8350388k263373t4/
Re: Adonis Blue - a recent UK colonist?
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:59 pm
by Padfield
Very interesting! I have a book at home in England called 'The British Butterflies - Their Origin and Establishment' (Dennis, 1977), which rewrote quite a lot of Ford's speculation in his 'Butterflies'. It's an excellent book and well worth getting but I suspect more recent biochemical methods will mean much of it, in turn, will have to be rewritten!
If the British adonis blues have such a limited genetic origin it might help explain why they are apparently so much more vulnerable and local than their cousins on the continent.
Guy
Re: Adonis Blue - a recent UK colonist?
Posted: Fri Jul 04, 2008 11:04 pm
by eccles
Have they developed into a separate subspecies?