Butterfly Phylogenetics
2009 October 3
A recent study published in online issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reconstructs a Nymphalid butterfly family tree and reveals family’s evolutionary history which has remained a long term mystery due to the lack of butterfly fossils. The age of Nymphalidae butterflies has been the subject of longstanding confusion but according to this new study Nymphalids first evolved 90 million years ago which suprisingly coincides with the global rise of the angiosperms at about 100 million years ago.
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 authors have created a robust phylogenetic tree for the Nymphalidae butterfly family which represents the phylogenetic relationships of 400 genera of Nymphalidae based on a maximum likelihood analysis, along with outgroups. Clades representing subfamilies are coloured. (Image Copyright © The Royal Society 2009 )Interestingly the rate of diversification of the family tree or appearance of new Nymphalid species came to a slowdown around the 64 million years ago which coincides with the Cretaceous–Tertiary (KT) event leading to massive extinction of Nymphalid lineages and different species including non-avian dinosaurs. The ancestors of 10–12 lineages of the Neotropical and Oriental regions survived in KT event leading to subsequent elevated speciation rates in the Tertiary. Extinction, which according to many scientists was caused by a massive catastrophic bolide impact, have been further compounded as a result of widespread extinctions of angiosperm host plants in the same period, disrupting obligate butterfly–plant interactions.
Reference:
Wahlberg, N., Leneveu, J., Kodandaramaiah, U., Pena, C., Nylin, S., Freitas, A., & Brower, A. (2009). Nymphalid butterflies diversify following near demise at the cretaceous/tertiary boundary Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1303
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Butterfly Phylogenetics: A recent study published in online issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B rec.. http://bit.ly/16ZxvB
Butterfly Phylogenetics http://tinyurl.com/y99x4ub
Butterfly Phylogenetics http://bit.ly/16ZxvB
Butterfly Phylogenetics http://bit.ly/16ZxvB
RT @abhishektiwari Butterfly Phylogenetics http://bit.ly/16ZxvB
So, because of devastation of many flowering plants and large part of butterfly species this limited or drastically slowed the diversification of butterflies? It makes you wonder about other species, including humans.
Jeanette, KT is the quite plausible explanation for all this. Just imagine what will happen if there is less or no sunlight due to dust clouds. Although we don’t know how drastic it was but I am sure most of species suffered from KT. Although Humans were not in picture that time may be they came quite late after KT. According to Wikipedia Mitochondrial DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago.