Abstract
BackgroundSpecial resemblance of animals to natural objects such as leaves provides a representative example of evolutionary adaptation. The existence of such sophisticated features challenges our understanding of how complex adaptive phenotypes evolved. Leaf mimicry typically consists of several pattern elements, the spatial arrangement of which generates the leaf venation-like appearance. However, the process by which leaf patterns evolved remains unclear.ResultsIn this study we show the evolutionary origin and process for the leaf pattern in Kallima (Nymphalidae) butterflies. Using comparative morphological analyses, we reveal that the wing patterns of Kallima and 45 closely related species share the same ground plan, suggesting that the pattern elements of leaf mimicry have been inherited across species with lineage-specific changes of their character states. On the basis of these analyses, phylogenetic comparative methods estimated past states of the pattern elements and enabled reconstruction of the wing patterns of the most recent common ancestor. This analysis shows that the leaf pattern has evolved through several intermediate patterns. Further, we use Bayesian statistical methods to estimate the temporal order of character-state changes in the pattern elements by which leaf mimesis evolved, and show that the pattern elements changed their spatial arrangement (e.g., from a curved line to a straight line) in a stepwise manner and finally establish a close resemblance to a leaf venation-like appearance.ConclusionsOur study provides the first evidence for stepwise and contingent evolution of leaf mimicry. Leaf mimicry patterns evolved in a gradual, rather than a sudden, manner from a non-mimetic ancestor. Through a lineage of Kallima butterflies, the leaf patterns evolutionarily originated through temporal accumulation of orchestrated changes in multiple pattern elements.
Highlights
Special resemblance of animals to natural objects such as leaves provides a representative example of evolutionary adaptation
We demonstrate that the leaf pattern is composed of an array of discrete elements described by the Nymphalid ground plan (NGP) that are present in the wing patterns of closely related species
Because the present study focused on the evolution of leaf mimicry patterns in Kallima spp., character coding should be performed relative to the morphological characteristics of this species wing pattern
Summary
Special resemblance of animals to natural objects such as leaves provides a representative example of evolutionary adaptation. Leaf mimicry in butterfly wings (e.g. genus Kallima) provides a striking example of complex adaptive features and has led to speculation about how wing patterns evolve a close resemblance to leaves from an ancestral form that did not resemble leaves [10,11,12,13]. (Kallima inachus and Kallima paralekta) was described by Wallace as ‘the most wonderful and undoubted case of protective resemblance in a butterfly’ [14] Following this description, Darwin, Poulton, and modern evolutionary biologists have argued that the leaf mimicry pattern is a product of gradual evolution by natural selection [10,15,16,17]. There is as yet no direct experimental evidence for the gradual evolution of the leaf pattern
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