Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Allometry and shared ancestry, rather than ecology, shapes the evolution of 3D eye size in temperate butterflies

Halali, Sridhar LU ; Hall, Stephen A. LU ; Pettersson, Lars B. LU orcid ; Carrié, Romain LU ; Caplat, Paul LU ; Baird, Emily LU and Wahlberg, Niklas LU (2025)
Abstract
Sensory traits shape animal lifestyles due to the central role they play in retrieving and processing environmental information. However, being some of the most energetically expensive tissues to build and maintain, ecological demands often modulate investment in these organs. Evidence that ecology shapes the evolution of sensory traits is plenty but is heavily biased towards vertebrates and has only recently begun to emerge in invertebrates. Here, we elucidate the macroevolution of a key sensory organ – eye size – using temperate butterflies as models. Using micro-CT X-ray imaging of pinned museum specimens, we quantified the eye size of 444 individuals comprising 59 species. Further, using 12 years of long-term monitoring data to... (More)
Sensory traits shape animal lifestyles due to the central role they play in retrieving and processing environmental information. However, being some of the most energetically expensive tissues to build and maintain, ecological demands often modulate investment in these organs. Evidence that ecology shapes the evolution of sensory traits is plenty but is heavily biased towards vertebrates and has only recently begun to emerge in invertebrates. Here, we elucidate the macroevolution of a key sensory organ – eye size – using temperate butterflies as models. Using micro-CT X-ray imaging of pinned museum specimens, we quantified the eye size of 444 individuals comprising 59 species. Further, using 12 years of long-term monitoring data to quantify species habitat preferences, we tested the hypothesis that forest-associated species, likely experiencing dimmer light conditions, should have larger eyes than those from open habitats. Our comparative analyses revealed tight allometric scaling between eye and wing size, and phylogeny alone explained 74% of eye size variation, with low heterogeneity in the evolutionary rates. Further, we found that habitat structure and a behavioural trait, male mate location strategy, had no association with eye size. Overall, allometry and shared ancestry, not ecology, shape the macroevolution of eye size in temperate butterflies and demonstrate how non-invasive microCT imaging can be used on pinned museum specimens for studying phenotypic evolution. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
publisher
EcoEvoRxiv
DOI
10.32942/X2HH0F
project
Svensk Dagfjärilsövervakning
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
56b36c1f-d52c-449d-98f0-3db76d708abe
date added to LUP
2026-02-25 11:42:21
date last changed
2026-03-06 03:07:27
@misc{56b36c1f-d52c-449d-98f0-3db76d708abe,
  abstract     = {{Sensory traits shape animal lifestyles due to the central role they play in retrieving and processing environmental information. However, being some of the most energetically expensive tissues to build and maintain, ecological demands often modulate investment in these organs. Evidence that ecology shapes the evolution of sensory traits is plenty but is heavily biased towards vertebrates and has only recently begun to emerge in invertebrates. Here, we elucidate the macroevolution of a key sensory organ – eye size – using temperate butterflies as models. Using micro-CT X-ray imaging of pinned museum specimens, we quantified the eye size of 444 individuals comprising 59 species. Further, using 12 years of long-term monitoring data to quantify species habitat preferences, we tested the hypothesis that forest-associated species, likely experiencing dimmer light conditions, should have larger eyes than those from open habitats. Our comparative analyses revealed tight allometric scaling between eye and wing size, and phylogeny alone explained 74% of eye size variation, with low heterogeneity in the evolutionary rates. Further, we found that habitat structure and a behavioural trait, male mate location strategy, had no association with eye size. Overall, allometry and shared ancestry, not ecology, shape the macroevolution of eye size in temperate butterflies and demonstrate how non-invasive microCT imaging can be used on pinned museum specimens for studying phenotypic evolution.}},
  author       = {{Halali, Sridhar and Hall, Stephen A. and Pettersson, Lars B. and Carrié, Romain and Caplat, Paul and Baird, Emily and Wahlberg, Niklas}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{06}},
  note         = {{Preprint}},
  publisher    = {{EcoEvoRxiv}},
  title        = {{Allometry and shared ancestry, rather than ecology, shapes the evolution of 3D eye size in temperate butterflies}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.32942/X2HH0F}},
  doi          = {{10.32942/X2HH0F}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}