ArticleBiology letters2021
Museum genomics reveals the Xerces blue butterfly (
Article in Biology letters, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring the Quality of Historic DNA From Pinned Beetles.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- The Evolution of Bees: Insights from 'Omic Studies.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Review
- Sequestration and the Extended Museum Specimen: Effects of Time and Preparation Methodology.Journal of chemical ecology · 2025Article
- Whole genomes from the extinct Xerces Blue butterfly can help identify declining insect species.eLife · 2024Article
- The nature of science: The fundamental role of natural history in ecology, evolution, conservation, and education.Ecology and evolution · 2023Review
- Genomes from historical Drosophila melanogaster specimens illuminate adaptive and demographic changes across more than 200 years of evolution.PLoS biology · 2023Article
- Genome skimming with nanopore sequencing precisely determines global and transposon DNA methylation in vertebrates.Genome research · 2023Article
- Genome Skimming with Nanopore Sequencing Precisely Determines Global and Transposon DNA Methylation in Vertebrates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- A large deletion at the cortex locus eliminates butterfly wing patterning.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
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.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.