Nymphalid butterflies diversify following near demise at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary

Abstract

The butterfly family Nymphalidae contains some of the most important non-drosophilid insect model systems for evolutionary and ecological studies, yet the evolutionary history of the group has remained shrouded in mystery. We have inferred a robust phylogenetic hypothesis based on sequences of 10 genes and 235 morphological characters for exemplars of 400 of the 540 valid nymphalid genera representing all major lineages of the family. By dating the branching events, we infer that Nymphalidae originated in the Cretaceous at 90 Ma, but that the ancestors of 10 -12 lineages survived the end-Cretaceous catastrophe in the Neotropical and Oriental regions. Patterns of diversification suggest extinction of lineages at the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary (65 Ma) and subsequent elevated speciation rates in the Tertiary.

Rapid diversification and not clade age explains high diversity in neotropical Adelpha butterflies

“…We therefore focused our analyses of the 72-taxon dataset on the results obtained with coxI and ef1-a sequence data, and, as shown in figure 2, the decaying effect of wg on portions of the phylogeny is quite apparent (evident in the figure inset, nodes C and E). The relationships among the Limenitidini genera used as outgroup taxa (excluding Limenitis and Adelpha) are unresolved, and this pattern appears across individual and combined gene tree analyses (electronic supplementary material; but see [34]). …”

Borboletas frugívoras (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) de uma área urbana (Área de Proteção Especial Manancial Cercadinho) em Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brasil

“…A divisão das subfamílias foi baseada em Wahlberg et al (2009), considerando Morphini e Brassolini como tribos de Satyrinae.…”

“…As borboletas frugívoras fazem parte da família Nymphalidae e estão distribuídas em quatro subfamílias: Satyrinae, Charaxinae, Biblidinae e Nymphalinae (Wahlberg et al 2009), representando aproximadamente 20% da fauna de borboletas da região Neotropical (Lamas 2004). Estudos importantes já foram realizados envolvendo borboletas frugívoras, como por exemplo, os pioneiros de De Vries et al (1997 e o mais atuais de Uehara-Prado et al (2007) e Ribeiro et al (2008).…”

Species diversity and community structure of fruit-feeding butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) in an eastern amazonian forest

“…Among this group, fruit-feeding butterflies have been widely used as bioindicators because of their sensitivity to environmental modifications (Brown Jr. & Freitas, 2000;Fermon et al, 2005;Barlow et al, 2007;Uehara-Prado et al, 2007). This guild feeds on rotten fruits, plant exudates, carcasses, and mammal excrement (Devries, 1987;Devries et al, 1997;Freitas et al, 2014), and it includes four Nymphalidae subfamilies (Biblidinae, Satyrinae, Charaxinae and Nymphalinae [only the tribe Coeini]) (Wahlberg et al, 2009). Despite fruitfeeding butterflies being a well-known group, knowledge of butterfly diversity varies greatly with locations in Brazil (Santos et al, 2008).…”