PATTERNS OF MITOCHONDRIAL VERSUS NUCLEAR-DNA SEQUENCE DIVERGENCE AMONG NYMPHALID BUTTERFLIES - THE UTILITY OF WINGLESS AS A SOURCE OF CHARACTERS FOR PHYLOGENETIC INFERENCE

To investigate the utility of a region of wingless(wg) as a marker for molecular systematics, we compared wg sequences to mitochondrial COII sequences from twenty-two nymphalid butterfly taxa and one outgroup. Compositional characteristics of the two gene regions are compared, an d their contributions to a cladogram inferred from the combined data s et are assessed. Primarily due to its uniform base composition, wg app ears to become saturated more slowly than mtDNA, although the two gene s appear to be evolving at quite similar rates. We suggest that wg wil l be a useful source of characters for phylogenetic studies of butterf lies, and perhaps other insect taxa, with divergence times up to 60 mi llion years ago.