Polskie Forum Entomologiczne

In some areas the host-plant relationships are not so distinct (e.g. Transcaucasian Z. minos young larvae may feed on Thmus sp.)

Prov. Lorestan, 30 km E Khoramabad 1.800 m, Biotopes. Open fields and wet meadows. Host plant. Falcaria vulgaris

...Results suggest that evolutionary relationships within the x. purpuralis complex are much more complicated than originally thought.
At present, combined allozymic and morphometric data are only available for the Apennine samples. Comparative analysis of these data strongly suggests that populations of Z. purpuralis in the Apennines behave in rather different ways with respect to the occurrence of gene exchange with other gene pools. On one hand, no gene flow appears to occur between the geographically close Southern
populations PUP (morphologically assignable to Z. purpuralis) and PUR (feeding on Pimpinella as Z. minos, but morphometrically distinct from this species). On the other hand, extensive introgression, revealable at both the allozyme and morphometric level, seems to occur between some purpuralis and minos-like populations from Abruzzi, as exemplified by the PUS and PUC samples. Thus, minos-like populations of Central and Southern Apennines may have different origins. The close morphometric relationships between PUR and the Turkish population (TRM) suggest that the former population could have been derived from eastern ancestors across one of the past land connections existing between the Balkan Peninsula and the Apennines. The occurrence of such trans-Adriatic and trans-Ionic immigrants in the Central and Southern Apennines is a well known phenomenon supported by several examples (Gridelli, 1950; La Greca, 1984). Future research should be directed towards testing the hypothesis that Z. minos include several genetically distinct populations which originated in different geographic refugia during one or more glacial periods and diverged from Z. purpuralis to various extents. Post-glacial spread of Z. purpuralis populations might have produced several instances of secondary contact resulting in different degrees of introgression or reproductive barriers between gene pools. In the light of these data, the occurrence of only two species both widespread in Europe and Asia Minor seems unlikely. In order to assess this problem a comparative analysis of some eastern population samples, already studied by Naumann & Naumann (1985), is recommended.