World travellers: phylogeny and biogeography of the butterfly genusLeptotes(Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)

Abstract

Leptotina butterflies (Lycaenidae, Polyommatiinae) are found mostly in tropical and subtropical areas around the globe, marginally penetrating into temperate regions. Here, we investigated phylogenetic and biogeographical relationships of most representatives of the subtribe, using both likelihood and Bayesian approaches. We also estimated the timing of their diversification. And lastly, we studied phylogeographic patterns of the most widespread species, Leptotes pirithous. DNA sequences from two mitochondrial (COI, COII) and two nuclear genes (wingless, Ef1 ) were analysed for 13 species of the genus Leptotes Scudder and one species of the genus Cyclyrius Butler. Both genera together form a monophyletic clade, and Cyclyrius is rooted deep inside Leptotes. Therefore, we designate Cyclyrius to be a junior synonym of Leptotes. According to our study, the genus Leptotes originated between the late Eocene and early Oligocene (35-31 Ma). During the Miocene it dispersed to the rest of the southern hemisphere, with further speciation events within the Indo-Australian region, and separate radiations in the Americas and the Afrotropics. Leptotes webbianus from the Canary Islands turned out to be sister to the American clade from which it split c. 12 Ma. Leptotes pirithous originated in Madagascar c. 4 Ma and invaded the whole of Africa and southern Europe, including numerous surrounding islands. Populations of L. pirithous from Mauritius and Madagascar turned out to represent a distinct species (Leptotes durrelli sp.n.) and the same applies to the Australasian populations of Leptotes plinius (Leptotes lybas stat. rev.). This published work has been registered in ZooBank, http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid: zoobank.

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

“…Almost all genera are represented by multiple genes, except Borbo, Gegenes, Laeosopis, Callophrys, and Cyclyrius (the latter recently synonymised with Leptotes; Fric et al 2019) which are represented only by the COI gene. Species represented by only the DNA barcode tend to be closely related to species with more genes sequenced (Suppl.…”

Climate, immigration and speciation shape terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity in the European Alps

“…We only used trees containing at least 50% of the valid species in the correspondent clade (electronic supplementary material, table S12). For the majority of butterflies and amphibians, we relied on two recently published super-trees [60,61], but for specific butterfly lineages underrepresented in the super-tree, we used complementary phylogenies [62][63][64][65]. To include Alpine species that were absent from these trees, we performed additional calibrations using secondary calibration points.…”

Crianza de Leptotes callanga (Lepidoptera : Lycaenidae : Polyommatinae) sobre Genista monspessulana (Fabaceae introducida de origen mediterráneo) en el Sur de Perú

“…Leptotes se caracteriza por los dibujos alares ventrales en los adultos (Bálint & Johnson, 1995) y por su genitalia. Según estudios genéticos recientes es un género monofilético (Fric et al, 2019), que contiene unas 30 especies.…”

“…Leptotes es biológicamente interesante por su propensión a dispersar y colonizar nuevas áreas (Clench, 1964 ;Fric et al, 2019). Es uno de los pocos géneros de mariposas pantropicales que ocurre tanto en los bosques de baja altitud como en los de montañas.…”