Abstract
An electrophoretic survey of 16 enzyme loci in nine of the eleven British Nemouridae (order Plecoptera) was carried out in order to assess their systematic relationships and to determine the level of genetic variation in these primitive insects. The species screened were: Nemoura cinerea, N. cambrica, N. dubitans, N. avicularis, Nemurella picteti, Protonemura meyeri, P. praecox, Amphinemura sulcicollis and A. standfussi. The Nei genetic distances between all the species are large, ranging from 0.53 to 2.07, and consistent with a proposed ancient origin for these insects. The derived genetic relationships between the species are in agreement with the taxonomic classification of this family based on morphological characteristics. The amount of variation within each species is small, with an overall mean expected heterozygosity per locus of 0.047, mean proportion of polymorphic loci of 0.146 and mean number of alleles per locus of 1.25. A reasonable explanation for these low levels of variability is that variation has been lost during periodic population bottle-necks. The usefulness of allozymic analysis in species identification is also discussed.
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