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Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence

Because the tropical regions of America harbor the highest concentration of butterfly species, its fauna has attracted considerable attention. Much less is known about the butterflies of southern South America, particularly Argentina, where over 1,200 species occur. To advance understanding of this...

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Autores principales: Lavinia, Pablo D., Núñez Bustos, Ezequiel O., Kopuchian, Cecilia, Lijtmaer, Darío A., García, Natalia C., Hebert, Paul D. N., Tubaro, Pablo L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648246/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29049373
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186845
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author Lavinia, Pablo D.
Núñez Bustos, Ezequiel O.
Kopuchian, Cecilia
Lijtmaer, Darío A.
García, Natalia C.
Hebert, Paul D. N.
Tubaro, Pablo L.
author_facet Lavinia, Pablo D.
Núñez Bustos, Ezequiel O.
Kopuchian, Cecilia
Lijtmaer, Darío A.
García, Natalia C.
Hebert, Paul D. N.
Tubaro, Pablo L.
author_sort Lavinia, Pablo D.
collection PubMed
description Because the tropical regions of America harbor the highest concentration of butterfly species, its fauna has attracted considerable attention. Much less is known about the butterflies of southern South America, particularly Argentina, where over 1,200 species occur. To advance understanding of this fauna, we assembled a DNA barcode reference library for 417 butterfly species of Argentina, focusing on the Atlantic Forest, a biodiversity hotspot. We tested the efficacy of this library for specimen identification, used it to assess the frequency of cryptic species, and examined geographic patterns of genetic variation, making this study the first large-scale genetic assessment of the butterflies of southern South America. The average sequence divergence to the nearest neighbor (i.e. minimum interspecific distance) was 6.91%, ten times larger than the mean distance to the furthest conspecific (0.69%), with a clear barcode gap present in all but four of the species represented by two or more specimens. As a consequence, the DNA barcode library was extremely effective in the discrimination of these species, allowing a correct identification in more than 95% of the cases. Singletons (i.e. species represented by a single sequence) were also distinguishable in the gene trees since they all had unique DNA barcodes, divergent from those of the closest non-conspecific. The clustering algorithms implemented recognized from 416 to 444 barcode clusters, suggesting that the actual diversity of butterflies in Argentina is 3%–9% higher than currently recognized. Furthermore, our survey added three new records of butterflies for the country (Eurema agave, Mithras hannelore, Melanis hillapana). In summary, this study not only supported the utility of DNA barcoding for the identification of the butterfly species of Argentina, but also highlighted several cases of both deep intraspecific and shallow interspecific divergence that should be studied in more detail.
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spelling pubmed-56482462017-11-03 Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence Lavinia, Pablo D. Núñez Bustos, Ezequiel O. Kopuchian, Cecilia Lijtmaer, Darío A. García, Natalia C. Hebert, Paul D. N. Tubaro, Pablo L. PLoS One Research Article Because the tropical regions of America harbor the highest concentration of butterfly species, its fauna has attracted considerable attention. Much less is known about the butterflies of southern South America, particularly Argentina, where over 1,200 species occur. To advance understanding of this fauna, we assembled a DNA barcode reference library for 417 butterfly species of Argentina, focusing on the Atlantic Forest, a biodiversity hotspot. We tested the efficacy of this library for specimen identification, used it to assess the frequency of cryptic species, and examined geographic patterns of genetic variation, making this study the first large-scale genetic assessment of the butterflies of southern South America. The average sequence divergence to the nearest neighbor (i.e. minimum interspecific distance) was 6.91%, ten times larger than the mean distance to the furthest conspecific (0.69%), with a clear barcode gap present in all but four of the species represented by two or more specimens. As a consequence, the DNA barcode library was extremely effective in the discrimination of these species, allowing a correct identification in more than 95% of the cases. Singletons (i.e. species represented by a single sequence) were also distinguishable in the gene trees since they all had unique DNA barcodes, divergent from those of the closest non-conspecific. The clustering algorithms implemented recognized from 416 to 444 barcode clusters, suggesting that the actual diversity of butterflies in Argentina is 3%–9% higher than currently recognized. Furthermore, our survey added three new records of butterflies for the country (Eurema agave, Mithras hannelore, Melanis hillapana). In summary, this study not only supported the utility of DNA barcoding for the identification of the butterfly species of Argentina, but also highlighted several cases of both deep intraspecific and shallow interspecific divergence that should be studied in more detail. Public Library of Science 2017-10-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5648246/ /pubmed/29049373 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186845 Text en © 2017 Lavinia et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Lavinia, Pablo D.
Núñez Bustos, Ezequiel O.
Kopuchian, Cecilia
Lijtmaer, Darío A.
García, Natalia C.
Hebert, Paul D. N.
Tubaro, Pablo L.
Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence
title Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence
title_full Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence
title_fullStr Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence
title_full_unstemmed Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence
title_short Barcoding the butterflies of southern South America: Species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence
title_sort barcoding the butterflies of southern south america: species delimitation efficacy, cryptic diversity and geographic patterns of divergence
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5648246/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29049373
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0186845
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