Abstract
We aggregated data on butterfly-host plant associations from existing sources in order to address the following questions: (1) is there a general correlation between host diversity and butterfly species richness?, (2) has the evolution of host plant use followed consistent patterns across butterfly lineages?, (3) what is the common ancestral host plant for all butterfly lineages? The compilation included 44,148 records from 5,152 butterfly species (28.6% of worldwide species of Papilionoidea) and 1,193 genera (66.3%). The overwhelming majority of butterflies use angiosperms as host plants. Fabales is used by most species (1,007 spp.) from all seven butterfly families and most subfamilies, Poales is the second most frequently used order, but is mostly restricted to two species-rich subfamilies: Hesperiinae (56.5% of all Hesperiidae), and Satyrinae (42.6% of all Nymphalidae). We found a significant and strong correlation between host plant diversity and butterfly species richness. A global test for congruence (Parafit test) was sensitive to uncertainty in the butterfly cladogram, and suggests a mixed system with congruent associations between Papilionidae and magnoliids, Hesperiidae and monocots, and the remaining subfamilies with the eudicots (fabids and malvids), but also numerous random associations. The congruent associations are also recovered as the most probable ancestral states in each node using maximum likelihood methods. The shift from basal groups to eudicots appears to be more likely than the other way around, with the only exception being a Satyrine-clade within the Nymphalidae that feed on monocots. Our analysis contributes to the visualization of the complex pattern of interactions at superfamily level and provides a context to discuss the timing of changes in host plant utilization that might have promoted diversification in some butterfly lineages.
Highlights
Plant feeding insects make up a large part of the earths total biodiversity so that explaining mechanisms behind the diversification of these groups could promote the understanding of global biodiversity [1]
We focus on higher taxonomic levels in order to evaluate whether macro-evolutionary patterns of host plant associations can be detected in a large-scale analysis encompassing the phylogenetic relationships of all butterfly families [24]
We found a positive correlation between host plant diversity and butterfly diversification and a congruent association between the phylogenies of plants and butterflies
Summary
Plant feeding insects make up a large part of the earths total biodiversity so that explaining mechanisms behind the diversification of these groups could promote the understanding of global biodiversity [1]. A seminal paper about coevolution between butterflies and host plants by Ehrlich and Raven [2] triggered intensive discussions about the role of biotic interactions in the evolutionary processes that led to radiation in species numbers. The first is that related butterflies tend to feed on related host plants as a consequence of a stepwise coevolutionary process in which plants evolve defenses against herbivores and these herbivores, in turn, evolve new capacities to cope with the defenses. The second prediction is that there should be a general correlation between host diversity and herbivore species richness as a consequence of the adaptive radiation and enhanced diversification experienced by insect lineages due to the adaptation to diverse, chemically distinct plant clades [3]
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