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Multilocus species trees show the recent adaptive radiation of the mimetic heliconius butterflies

Kozak, Krzysztof M. ; Wahlberg, Niklas LU ; Neild, Andrew F E ; Dasmahapatra, Kanchon K. ; Mallet, James and Jiggins, Chris D. (2015) In Systematic Biology 64(3). p.505-524
Abstract

Müllerian mimicry among Neotropical Heliconiini butterflies is an excellent example of natural selection, associated with the diversification of a large continental-scale radiation. Some of the processes driving the evolution of mimicry rings are likely to generate incongruent phylogenetic signals across the assemblage, and thus pose a challenge for systematics. We use a data set of 22 mitochondrial and nuclear markers from 92% of species in the tribe, obtained by Sanger sequencing and de novo assembly of short read data, to re-examine the phylogeny of Heliconiini with both supermatrix and multispecies coalescent approaches, characterize the patterns of conflicting signal, and compare the performance of various methodological approaches... (More)

Müllerian mimicry among Neotropical Heliconiini butterflies is an excellent example of natural selection, associated with the diversification of a large continental-scale radiation. Some of the processes driving the evolution of mimicry rings are likely to generate incongruent phylogenetic signals across the assemblage, and thus pose a challenge for systematics. We use a data set of 22 mitochondrial and nuclear markers from 92% of species in the tribe, obtained by Sanger sequencing and de novo assembly of short read data, to re-examine the phylogeny of Heliconiini with both supermatrix and multispecies coalescent approaches, characterize the patterns of conflicting signal, and compare the performance of various methodological approaches to reflect the heterogeneity across the data. Despite the large extent of reticulate signal and strong conflict between markers, nearly identical topologies are consistently recovered by most of the analyses, although the supermatrix approach failed to reflect the underlying variation in the history of individual loci. However, the supermatrix represents a useful approximation where multiple rare species represented by short sequences can be incorporated easily. The first comprehensive, time-calibrated phylogeny of this group is used to test the hypotheses of a diversification rate increase driven by the dramatic environmental changes in the Neotropics over the past 23 myr, or changes caused by diversity-dependent effects on the rate of diversification. We find that the rate of diversification has increased on the branch leading to the presently most species-rich genus Heliconius, but the change occurred gradually and cannot be unequivocally attributed to a specific environmental driver. Our study provides comprehensive comparison of philosophically distinct species tree reconstruction methods and provides insights into the diversification of an important insect radiation in the most biodiverse region of the planet.

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author
; ; ; ; and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Amazonia, diversification rate, incongruence, Lepidoptera, mimicry, Miocene, multispecies coalescent
in
Systematic Biology
volume
64
issue
3
pages
20 pages
publisher
Oxford University Press
external identifiers
  • scopus:84929582625
  • pmid:25634098
ISSN
1063-5157
DOI
10.1093/sysbio/syv007
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
4adef8d7-98d5-4065-a6dc-f2d0e6996aff
date added to LUP
2016-04-27 21:12:29
date last changed
2024-03-06 21:07:33
@article{4adef8d7-98d5-4065-a6dc-f2d0e6996aff,
  abstract     = {{<p>Müllerian mimicry among Neotropical Heliconiini butterflies is an excellent example of natural selection, associated with the diversification of a large continental-scale radiation. Some of the processes driving the evolution of mimicry rings are likely to generate incongruent phylogenetic signals across the assemblage, and thus pose a challenge for systematics. We use a data set of 22 mitochondrial and nuclear markers from 92% of species in the tribe, obtained by Sanger sequencing and de novo assembly of short read data, to re-examine the phylogeny of Heliconiini with both supermatrix and multispecies coalescent approaches, characterize the patterns of conflicting signal, and compare the performance of various methodological approaches to reflect the heterogeneity across the data. Despite the large extent of reticulate signal and strong conflict between markers, nearly identical topologies are consistently recovered by most of the analyses, although the supermatrix approach failed to reflect the underlying variation in the history of individual loci. However, the supermatrix represents a useful approximation where multiple rare species represented by short sequences can be incorporated easily. The first comprehensive, time-calibrated phylogeny of this group is used to test the hypotheses of a diversification rate increase driven by the dramatic environmental changes in the Neotropics over the past 23 myr, or changes caused by diversity-dependent effects on the rate of diversification. We find that the rate of diversification has increased on the branch leading to the presently most species-rich genus Heliconius, but the change occurred gradually and cannot be unequivocally attributed to a specific environmental driver. Our study provides comprehensive comparison of philosophically distinct species tree reconstruction methods and provides insights into the diversification of an important insect radiation in the most biodiverse region of the planet.</p>}},
  author       = {{Kozak, Krzysztof M. and Wahlberg, Niklas and Neild, Andrew F E and Dasmahapatra, Kanchon K. and Mallet, James and Jiggins, Chris D.}},
  issn         = {{1063-5157}},
  keywords     = {{Amazonia; diversification rate; incongruence; Lepidoptera; mimicry; Miocene; multispecies coalescent}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{05}},
  number       = {{3}},
  pages        = {{505--524}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{Systematic Biology}},
  title        = {{Multilocus species trees show the recent adaptive radiation of the mimetic heliconius butterflies}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syv007}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/sysbio/syv007}},
  volume       = {{64}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}