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Title: Museum genomics reveals the Xerces blue butterfly ( Glaucopsyche xerces ) was a distinct species driven to extinction
The last Xerces blue butterfly was seen in the early 1940s, and its extinction is credited to human urban development. This butterfly has become a North American icon for insect conservation, but some have questioned whether it was truly a distinct species, or simply an isolated population of another living species. To address this question, we leveraged next-generation sequencing using a 93-year-old museum specimen. We applied a genome skimming strategy that aimed for the organellar genome and high-copy fractions of the nuclear genome by a shallow sequencing approach. From these data, we were able to recover over 200 million nucleotides, which assembled into several phylogenetically informative markers and the near-complete mitochondrial genome. From our phylogenetic analyses and haplotype network analysis we conclude that the Xerces blue butterfly was a distinct species driven to extinction.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1922624
NSF-PAR ID:
10286929
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Biology Letters
Volume:
17
Issue:
7
ISSN:
1744-957X
Page Range / eLocation ID:
20210123
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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