Red Book of Butterflies in Turkey Red Book of Butterflies in Turkey

106
Red Book of Butterflies in Turkey
Data Deficient
Agrodiaetus
Blues
Wagner’s Blue (Polyommatus wagneri)
©Geoff & Hilary Welch
Approximately 20% of species in Turkey belong to the genus
Polyommatus Latreille, 1804, and more than 50 of these are placed in
the subgenus Agrodiaetus Hübner, 1822. Agrodiaetus is a species-rich
group of blues extensively distributed in the Palaearctic, and particularly
well-represented in Turkey and Iran. It is also the only Palaearctic
group of butterflies in which a high number of new species is still being
discovered (Wiemers 2003), and it has the most problematic taxonomy.
There are two main reasons for this.
Firstly, many species of Agrodiaetus look extremely similar. Secondly,
and conversely, the same Agrodiaetus species can look different at
geographically separate locations. To resolve the taxonomy of this
subgenus, scientists have turned to genetic markers, such as chromosome
numbers and structures as well as molecular markers. Surprisingly,
chromosome numbers turned out to be extremely variable among
different species of this subgenus and appear valuable to delimit species.
Unfortunately, karyological preparations are difficult to carry out and
analyze, which limits their practical value. More recent molecular
work also helped to delimit species and understand their relationships.
However, discrepancies not only exist between wing pattern characters
and genetic markers, but also among different genetic markers, which
prevents easy interpretation.
Currently there are 51 species of Agrodiaetus on the Turkish list. Of
these, 27 are listed as Data Deficient, largely because of their uncertain
taxonomy. More details of the taxonomic problems associated with each
species will be published in the Annotated Checklist, to be available
from www.dkm.org.tr.
Karaçetin, E. and Welch, H.J. (2011). Red Book of Butterflies in Turkey. Ankara, Turkey: Doğa Koruma Merkezi. Available from: [www.dkm.org.tr]