Tales of a Super Butterfly: Is Vanessa carye a Truly Migrant Species? Unraveling Migration Using Morphological and Genomics Approaches.

ABSTRACT: Among movement strategies, migratory behavior is particularly intriguing in insects. Home-breeding is often permanent, and return journeys can take several generations. Although migration is crucial to the ecological and evolutionary processes of the species involved, knowledge of insect migratory behavior needs to be better understood. Vanessa carye, a butterfly native to South America with a latitudinal range of ∼7,000 km, exemplifies this problem. This study analyzed samples collected across the species' range using single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to assess population structure, genetic diversity, and geometric morphometrics to examine wing shape variation. Results indicate that V. carye forms a genetically homogeneous unit composed of only two potential populations spanning ∼5,0

SUBMITTER: Villalobos-Leiva A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12449186 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature