Ten species in one: DNA barcoding reveals cryptic species in the neotropical skipper butterfly <i>Astraptes fulgerator</i>
Why is this work in the frame?
A frame that forgets how it found something cannot be audited. These are the routes that admitted this work.
Abstract
Astraptes fulgerator, first described in 1775, is a common and widely distributed neotropical skipper butterfly (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae). We combine 25 years of natural history observations in northwestern Costa Rica with morphological study and DNA barcoding of museum specimens to show that A. fulgerator is a complex of at least 10 species in this region. Largely sympatric, these taxa have mostly different caterpillar food plants, mostly distinctive caterpillars, and somewhat different ecosystem preferences but only subtly differing adults with no genitalic divergence. Our results add to the evidence that cryptic species are prevalent in tropical regions, a critical issue in efforts to document global species richness. They also illustrate the value of DNA barcoding, especially when coupled with traditional taxonomic tools, in disclosing hidden diversity.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
The record
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Topic
- Lepidoptera: Biology and Taxonomy
- Field
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
- Canadian institutions
- University of Guelph
- Funders
- —
- Keywords
- DNA barcodingSympatric speciationBiologyButterflyLepidoptera genitaliaTaxonSpecies complexEcologySpecies richnessBiodiversityZoologyPhylogenetic treeGene
- Has abstract in OpenAlex
- yes