Phylogenetics and divergence times of Papilioninae (Lepidoptera) with special reference to the enigmatic genera Teinopalpus and Meandrusa

Abstract

Phylogenetic relationships of 18 genera of the swallowtail subfamily Papilioninae, four genera of Parnassiinae, and the monobasic Baroniinae are inferred based on 94 morphological characters and 5616 bp DNA from seven genes (16S, COI, COII, ND1, ND5, EF-1 alpha and wingless). Bayesian likelihood analyses show that Baroniinae are the sister of a clade comprising Parnassiinae and Papilioninae. Four Papilioninae tribes are recognized, Leptocircini, Teinopalpini, Papilionini and Troidini, with Leptocircini being the sister of the remaining tribes. Meandrusa and Teinopalpus are sister taxa and comprise the tribe Teinopalpini, which is the sister of a clade comprising Papilionini and Troidini. The tribe Troidini (pipevine swallowtails) comprises two subtribes: Battina (including only Battus) and Troidina. The endemic Madagascan genus Pharmacophagus is consistently placed as the sister to the remaining Troidina. The non-Pharmacophagus Troidina are tentatively divided into a Neotropical lineage and an Australasian lineage. Dispersal-vicariance analyses indicate that past dispersal events are most important for explaining current distribution patterns of Papilionidae. However, the division of the non-Pharmacophagus Troidina into a Neotropical lineage and an Australasian lineage is possibly due to the final break-up of southern Gondwana. A fossil-calibrated relaxed Bayesian molecular clock analysis confirms that the ages of the lineages fit this scenario. The basal lineages leading to the current subfamily-level diversity of Papilionidae probably arose around the K ⁄ T boundary. Analyses of larval host-plant relationships within Papilionidae show very little phylogenetic pattern. However, Aristolochiaceae-feeding apparently evolved independently in non-Parnassiini parnassiines and Troidini.

Reconstructing a 55-million-year-old butterfly (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae)

“…Recent analyses indicate that several butterfl y families younger than the Hesperiidae (based on phylogenies reported in several recent studies, such as Heikkilä et al, 2011;see land et al, 2015), Lycaenidae, as sister to the Riodinidae, should be similar in age. In addition, the age of the older family Papilionidae was recently estimated at 68 (53-87) Ma (Simonsen et al, 2011). Clearly, this cannot be true at the same time, with the youngest family at the root.…”

Jurassic primates, immobile ducks and other oddities: a reply to Heads’ review of The Monkey’s Voyage

“…(6) Plausible explanations for the distributions of widespread groups that show multiple disjunctions often involve a combination of vicariance and LDD (e.g. Gamble et al 2011;Krosch et al 2011;Simonsen et al 2011;Springer et al 2012;Thomas et al 2014;Pyron 2014;Thornhill et al 2015). In fact, such results are so common that the default expectation for disjunctions in such taxa might be that they are not fully explained by either pure vicariance or pure LDD scenarios.…”

Nomenclatural updates of Aristolochia subgenus Pararistolochia (Aristolochiaceae)

“…In addition, Condamine et al (2012) reconstructed Aristolochiaceae as the ancestral host for Papilionidae, pointing to the importance of the group for studying co-evolution, especially the plant-butterfly interaction. Caterpillars of a dozen Papilionidae genera (Allancastria, Archon, Battus, Cressida, Euryades, Losaria, Luehdorfia, Ornithoptera, Pachliopta, Parides, Pharmacophagus, Troides) feed on Aristolochiaceae and the majority of the tribe Troidini on the genus Aristolochia (Parsons 1996a(Parsons , 1996bSimonsen et al 2010). The most prominent species known to feed on species of subg.…”

“…Both morphological (Huber 1960(Huber , 1985González and Stevenson 2002) and molecular phylogenetic studies (Ohi-Toma et al 2006;Bliss et al 2013) have shown that Pararistolochia occurs not only in Africa, but that species from Australasia have to be included as well. Aristolochiaceae are important host plants for various genera of the family Papilionidae (Lepidoptera) (Simonsen et al 2010). In addition, Condamine et al (2012) reconstructed Aristolochiaceae as the ancestral host for Papilionidae, pointing to the importance of the group for studying co-evolution, especially the plant-butterfly interaction.…”