MSGID: 1:317/3 646306e8   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Butterfly tree of life reveals an origin in North America    
      
     Date:   
         May 15, 2023   
     Source:   
         Florida Museum of Natural History   
     Summary:   
         Scientists have discovered where butterflies originated and which   
         plants the first butterflies relied on for food. To reach these   
         conclusions, researchers created the world's largest butterfly tree   
         of life, which they used as a guide to trace trace the evolution   
         of butterflies through time in a four-dimensional puzzle that led   
         back to North and Central America.   
      
      
         Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   About 100 million years ago, a group of trendsetting moths started flying   
   during the day rather than at night, taking advantage of nectar-rich   
   flowers that had co-evolved with bees. This single event led to the   
   evolution of all butterflies.   
      
   Scientists have known the precise timing of this event since 2019,   
   when a large-scale analysis of DNA discounted an earlier hypothesis   
   that pressure from bats prompted the evolution of butterflies after the   
   extinction of dinosaurs.   
      
   Now, scientists have discovered where the first butterflies originated   
   and which plants they relied on for food.   
      
   Before reaching these conclusions, researchers from dozens of countries   
   had to create the world's largest butterfly tree of life, assembled with   
   DNA from more than 2,000 species representing all butterfly families and   
   92% of genera. Using this framework as a guide, they traced the movements   
   and feeding habits of butterflies through time in a four-dimensional   
   puzzle that led back to North and Central America. According to their   
   results, published this Monday in the journal Nature Ecology and   
   Evolution, this is where the first butterflies took flight.   
      
   For lead author Akito Kawahara, curator of lepidoptera at the Florida   
   Museum of Natural History, the project was a long time coming.   
      
   "This was a childhood dream of mine," he said. "It's something I've wanted   
   to do since visiting the American Museum of Natural History when I was a   
   kid and seeing a picture of a butterfly phylogeny taped to a curator's   
   door. It's also the most difficult study I've ever been a part of, and   
   it took a massive effort from people all over the world to complete."   
   There are some 19,000 butterfly species, and piecing together the 100   
   million- year history of the group required information about their   
   modern distributions and host plants. Prior to this study, there was no   
   single place that researchers could go to access that type of data.   
      
   "In many cases, the information we needed existed in field guides   
   that hadn't been digitized and were written in various languages,"   
   Kawahara said.   
      
   Undeterred, the authors decided to make their own, publicly available   
   database, painstakingly translating and transferring the contents of   
   books, museum collections and isolated web pages into a single digital   
   repository.   
      
   Underlying all these data were 11 rare butterfly fossils, without which   
   the analysis would not have been possible. With paper-thin wings and   
   threadlike, gossamer hairs, butterflies are rarely preserved in the fossil   
   record. The few that are can be used as calibration points on genetic   
   trees, allowing researchers to record timing of key evolutionary events.   
      
   The results tell a dynamic story -- one rife with rapid diversifications,   
   faltering advances and improbable dispersals. Some groups traveled   
   over impossibly vast distances while others seem to have stayed in one   
   place, remaining stationary while continents, mountains and rivers moved   
   around them.   
      
   Butterflies first appeared somewhere in Central and western North   
   America. At the time, North America was bisected by an expansive seaway   
   that split the continent in two, while present-day Mexico was joined in   
   a long arc with the United States, Canada and Russia. North and South   
   America hadn't yet joined via the Isthmus of Panama, but butterflies   
   had little difficulty crossing the strait between them.   
      
   Despite the relatively close proximity of South America to Africa,   
   butterflies took the long way around, moving into Asia across the Bering   
   Land Bridge. From there, they quickly covered ground, radiating into   
   Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. They even made   
   it to India, which was then an isolated island, separated by miles of   
   open sea on all sides.   
      
   Even more astonishing was their arrival in Australia, which remained   
   sutured to Antarctica, the last combined remnant of the supercontinent   
   Pangaea. It's possible butterflies once lived in Antarctica when global   
   temperatures were warmer, making their way across the continent's northern   
   edge into Australia before the two landmasses separated.   
      
   Farther north, butterflies lingered on the edge of western Asia   
   for potentially up to 45 million years before finally migrating into   
   Europe. The reason for this extended pause is unclear, but its effects   
   are still apparent today, Kawahara explained.   
      
   "Europe doesn't have many butterfly species compared to other parts of   
   the world, and the ones it does have can often be found elsewhere. Many   
   butterflies in Europe are also found in Siberia and Asia, for example."   
   Once butterflies had become established, they quickly diversified   
   alongside their plant hosts. By the time dinosaurs were snuffed out   
   66 million years ago, nearly all modern butterfly families had arrived   
   on the scene, and each one seems to have had a special affinity for a   
   specific group of plants.   
      
   "We looked at this association over an evolutionary timescale, and in   
   pretty much every family of butterflies, bean plants came out to be the   
   ancestral hosts," Kawahara said. "This was true in the ancestor of all   
   butterflies as well."  Bean plants have since increased their roster of   
   pollinators to include various bees, flies, hummingbirds and mammals,   
   while butterflies have similarly expanded their palate. According to   
   study co-author Pamela Soltis, a Florida Museum curator and distinguished   
   professor, the botanical partnerships that butterflies forged helped   
   transform them from minor offshoot of moths to what is today one of the   
   world's largest groups of insects.   
      
   "The evolution of butterflies and flowering plants has been inexorably   
   intertwined since the origin of the former, and the close relationship   
   between them has resulted in remarkable diversification events in both   
   lineages," she said.   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Plants_&_Animals   
                   # Insects_(including_Butterflies) # Nature #   
                   Endangered_Plants   
             o Earth_&_Climate   
                   # Geography # Global_Warming # Exotic_Species   
             o Fossils_&_Ruins   
                   # Evolution # Origin_of_Life # Charles_Darwin   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Butterfly o Trace_fossil o Pupa o Monarch_butterfly   
             o Butterflies,_skippers_and_moths o Caterpillar o   
             Prairie_Restoration o Timeline_of_human_evolution   
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   Florida_Museum_of_Natural_History. Original written by Jerald   
   Pinson. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. Akito Y. Kawahara, Caroline Storer, Ana Paula S. Carvalho, David M.   
      
         Plotkin, Fabien L. Condamine, Mariana P. Braga, Emily A. Ellis,   
         Ryan A.   
      
         St Laurent, Xuankun Li, Vijay Barve, Liming Cai, Chandra Earl,   
         Paul B.   
      
         Frandsen, Hannah L. Owens, Wendy A. Valencia-Montoya, Kwaku   
         Aduse-Poku, Emmanuel F. A. Toussaint, Kelly M. Dexter, Tenzing   
         Doleck, Amanda Markee, Rebeccah Messcher, Y-Lan Nguyen, Jade   
         Aster T. Badon, Hugo A. Beni'tez, Michael F. Braby, Perry   
         A. C. Buenavente, Wei-Ping Chan, Steve C.   
      
         Collins, Richard A. Rabideau Childers, Even Dankowicz, Rod   
         Eastwood, Zdenek F. Fric, Riley J. Gott, Jason P. W. Hall, Winnie   
         Hallwachs, Nate B. Hardy, Rachel L. Hawkins Sipe, Alan Heath, Jomar   
         D. Hinolan, Nicholas T. Homziak, Yu-Feng Hsu, Yutaka Inayoshi,   
         Micael G. A. Itliong, Daniel H.   
      
         Janzen, Ian J. Kitching, Krushnamegh Kunte, Gerardo Lamas,   
         Michael J.   
      
         Landis, Elise A. Larsen, Torben B. Larsen, Jing V. Leong, Vladimir   
         Lukhtanov, Crystal A. Maier, Jose I. Martinez, Dino J. Martins,   
         Kiyoshi Maruyama, Sarah C. Maunsell, Nicola's Oliveira Mega,   
         Alexander Monastyrskii, Ana B. B. Morais, Chris J. Mu"ller,   
         Mark Arcebal K. Naive, Gregory Nielsen, Pablo Sebastia'n Padro'n,   
         Djunijanti Peggie, Helena Piccoli Romanowski, Szabolcs Sa'fia'n,   
         Motoki Saito, Stefan Schro"der, Vaughn Shirey, Doug Soltis, Pamela   
         Soltis, Andrei Sourakov, Gerard Talavera, Roger Vila, Petr Vlasanek,   
         Houshuai Wang, Andrew D. Warren, Keith R. Willmott, Masaya Yago,   
         Walter Jetz, Marta A. Jarzyna, Jesse W.   
      
         Breinholt, Marianne Espeland, Leslie Ries, Robert P. Guralnick,   
         Naomi E.   
      
         Pierce, David J. Lohman. A global phylogeny of butterflies   
         reveals their evolutionary history, ancestral hosts and   
         biogeographic origins. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 2023; DOI:   
         10.1038/s41559-023-02041-9   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/05/230515131957.htm   
      
   --- up 1 year, 11 weeks, 10 hours, 50 minutes   
    * Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)   
   SEEN-BY: 15/0 106/201 114/705 123/120 153/7715 218/700 226/30 227/114   
   SEEN-BY: 229/110 112 113 307 317 400 426 428 470 664 700 292/854 298/25   
   SEEN-BY: 305/3 317/3 320/219 396/45   
   PATH: 317/3 229/426