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

ABSTRACT: 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 i

SUBMITTER: Lavinia PD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5648246 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature