A complete time-calibrated multi-gene phylogeny of the European butterflies

Abstract

With the aim of supporting ecological analyses in butterflies, the third most species-rich superfamily of Lepidoptera, this paper presents the first time-calibrated phylogeny of all 496 extant butterfly species in Europe, including 18 very localized endemics for which no public DNA sequences had been available previously. It is based on a concatenated alignment of the mitochondrial gene COI and up to 11 nuclear gene fragments, using Bayesian inference of phylogeny. To avoid analytical biases that could result from our region-focus sampling, our European tree was grafted upon a global genuslevel backbone butterfly phylogeny for analyses. In addition to a consensus tree, we provide the posterior distribution of trees and the fully-concatenated alignment for future analyses.The incorporation of phylogenetic information in ecological theory and research has led to significant advancements by facilitating the connection of large-scale and long-term macro-evolutionary processes with ecological processes in the analysis of species interactions with their abiotic and biotic environments 1,2 . Phylogenies are increasingly used across diverse areas of macroecological research 3 , such as studies on large-scale diversity patterns 4 , disentangling historical and contemporary processes 5 , latitudinal diversity gradients 6 or improving species area relationships 7 . Phylogenetic information has also improved studies on assembly rules of local communities 8-10 , including spatiotemporal community dynamics 11 and multi-spatial and -temporal contextdependencies 12 . Additionally, phylogenetic information has provided insights into the mechanisms and consequences of biological invasions [13][14][15][16] . They also contribute to assessments of ecosystem functioning and service provisioning 17,18 , though phylogenetic relationships cannot simply be taken as a one-to-one proxy for ecosystem functioning 19,20 . However, they are of great value for studies of species traits and niche characteristics by quantifying the amount of phylogenetic conservatism 21 and ensuring statistical independence 22 in multi-species studies. Using an ever increasing toolkit of phylogenetic metrics 23,24 , and a growing body of phylogenetic insights, the afore mentioned advances across diverse research fields document how integrating evolutionary and ecological information can enhance assessments of future impacts of global change on biodiversity [25][26][27] and consequently inform conservation efforts (but see also 20,28 ).Although the amount of molecular data has increased exponentially during the last decades, most available phylogenetic studies are either restricted to a selected subset of species, higher taxa, or to small geographic areas. Complete and dated species-level phylogenetic hypotheses for species-rich taxa of larger regions are usually restricted to vascular plants 29 or vertebrates, such as global birds 30 or European tetrapods 31 , or the analyses are based on molecular data from a small subset of species (e.g. 5% in ants 6 ). Surpr...

The Pleistocene species pump past its prime: evidence from European butterfly sister species

“…Our estimates for the lower bound of sister species divergence differ sub- stantially from the ages of the corresponding nodes in the Wiemers et al (2020) phylogeny for individual pairs (Fig S4). This is unsurprising given that the latter are largely informed by mtDNA data (Fig S5).…”

“…The slope of best fit is positive (0.07, R 2 = 0.0144) but not significant (t = 1.229, df = 34, p = 0.228). Figure S4: A standardized major axis regression showing a relationship between the age estimates of sister pair nodes in the time calibrated multilocus phylogeny of Wiemers et al (2020) and our estimates from nuclear 4D sites. Yellow data points represent species pairs which abut at contact zones, and blue represents sympatric pairs.…”

Ecology and Genetic Structure of the Parasitoid Phobocampe confusa (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) in Relation to Its Hosts, Aglais Species (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)

“…Aglais urticae and A. io are widely distributed over most of Sweden. These species are closely related butterflies [ 19 ] and show similar ecology. They are batch-laying species of 200 to 300 eggs, with larvae gregarious during the first three instars of their development, which then progressively become solitary.…”

A new comprehensive trait database of European and Maghreb butterflies, Papilionoidea

“…Due to the precise knowledge of changes in distribution and abundance, driven by extensive citizen science contributions, and their trophic specialisation and immediate responses to environmental changes 1 they are frequently used as indicators of environmental change 2 . Recently, a series of comprehensive resources have been published for European butterflies comprising a detailed taxonomic list 3 , a dataset for 15,609 sequences for the COI mitochondrial markers for all Western-Central European species 4 , a dated phylogenetic tree for all European species 5 , atlases describing their detailed distributions 6 , and climatic risk assessments 7 . In turn, species traits are fundamental descriptors of feeding ecology, life-history, morphology, resource use, behaviour and physiological constraints 8 .…”