NABOKV-L post 0021234, Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:14:21 +0000

NY Times - Carl Zimmer, "Nabokov Butterfly Theory Is Vindicated"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/science/01butterfly.html?_r=2&hp&pagewanted=all


The Polyommatus paper reference is below, and the full paper is attached! Enjoy

Victor
******************

Vila, R., Bell, C.D., Macniven, R., Goldman-Huertas, B., Ree, R.H., Marshall, C.R., Bálint, Zs., Johnson, K., Benyamini, D. & Pierce, N.E. (2011) Phylogeny and paleoecology of Polyommatus blue butterflies show Beringia was a climate-regulated gateway to the New World. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences B, Published online before print January 26, 2011, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.2213

Transcontinental dispersals by organisms usually represent improbable events that constitute a major
challenge for biogeographers. By integrating molecular phylogeny, historical biogeography and palaeoecology,
we test a bold hypothesis proposed by Vladimir Nabokov regarding the origin of Neotropical
Polyommatus blue butterflies, and show that Beringia has served as a biological corridor for the dispersal
of these insects from Asia into the New World. We present a novel method to estimate ancestral
temperature tolerances using distribution range limits of extant organisms, and find that climatic conditions
in Beringia acted as a decisive filter in determining which taxa crossed into the New World
during five separate invasions over the past 11 Myr. Our results reveal a marked effect of the
Miocene–Pleistocene global cooling, and demonstrate that palaeoclimatic conditions left a strong
signal on the ecology of present-day taxa in the New World. The phylogenetic conservatism in thermal
tolerances that we have identified may permit the reconstruction of the palaeoecology of ancestral
organisms, especially mobile taxa that can easily escape from hostile environments rather than
adapt to them.




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