Plebejus Variation. Plebejus

The goal of this study was to analyze the geographic and taxonomic distribution of genetic and genomic variation in a species comples of Lycaeides butterflies to advance our understanding of the organization and structure of biological diversity. We addressed three key questions: (i) How well do the spatial distributions of rare (MAF between 0.1 and 0.5%), low-frequency (MAF between 0.5 and 5%) and common genetic variants (MAF greater than 5%) correspond with taxonomic boundaries or geographic distances among populations?, (ii) Is the evolutionary history of Lycaeides butterflies well-described by a strictly bifurcating tree or do genome-wide sequence data support the hypothesis that putative admixed lineages are indeed of hybrid origin?, and (iii) How is genetic ancestry organized within admixed individuals, and how much does the genome composition of admixed individuals vary within and among populations and lineages?