Differences in structural color and population genetic structure of Western and Central Palearctic Polyommatus icarus populations

Piszter, Gábor and Szatmári, Lajos and Sramkó, Gábor and Kertész, Krisztián Imre and Laczkó, Levente and Krízsik, Virág and Bálint, Zsolt and Biró, László Péter (2026) Differences in structural color and population genetic structure of Western and Central Palearctic Polyommatus icarus populations. SCIENTIFIC REPORTS. No. 27661. ISSN 2045-2322 (In Press)

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Abstract

The blue structural coloration of male Polyommatus icarus butterflies functions as a sexual signaling trait and exhibits remarkable spectral stability within populations despite being generated by highly complex photonic nanoarchitectures. The correlation of the blue sexual signaling color and population genetic variation of the butterflies was investigated across the Western and Central Palearctic regions. Dorsal wing reflectance spectra was measured for 95 male specimens and compared with the population genetic structure revealed in 99 specimens by 18 recently developed microsatellites. Reflectance measurements indicated a clear separation between the European and Central Asian populations, consistent with our previous findings, while the intermediate populations near the Ural Mountains exhibited distinct European spectral characteristics. In contrast, genetic variation showed limited structuring and correlated primarily with geographic distance, as indicated by a significant isolation-by-distance pattern. Thus, although both reflectance and genetic variations are geographically structured, spectral properties are only weakly correlated with genetic differentiation. Populations near the Ural Mountains exhibited genetic ancestry linked to Central Palearctic groups, while displaying distinct Western Palearctic coloration, suggesting that the focal species’ sexual signaling is strongly influenced by local factors. These findings suggest that sexual signaling coloration may evolve at least partially independently of the neutral genetic background, offering additional insight into evolutionary divergence across broad geographic scales.

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