A global phylogeny of butterflies reveals their evolutionary history, ancestral hosts and biogeographic origins

Butterflies are a diverse and charismatic insect group that are thought to have evolved with plants and dispersed throughout the world in response to key geological events. However, these hypotheses have not been extensively tested because a comprehensive phylogenetic framework and datasets for butterfly larval hosts and global distributions are lacking. We sequenced 391 genes from nearly 2,300 butterfly species, sampled from 90 countries and 28 specimen collections, to reconstruct a new phylogenomic tree of butterflies representing 92% of all genera. Our phylogeny has strong support for nearly all nodes and demonstrates that at least 36 butterfly tribes require reclassification. Divergence time analyses imply…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Awards: DEB-0447244, DEB-9615760, SES-0750480, DEB-1541557, DEB-1557007, DEB-1541500, DBI-1256742, DBI-1601369, IOS-1920895, DBI-1349345, DEB-1541560
• CN
  Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico

  Awards: 304273/2014-7, 563332/2010-7
• RS
  Russian Science Foundation

  Award: 19-14-00202
• H2
  Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

  Award: 851188