Two centuries of monarch butterfly collections reveal contrasting effects of range expansion and migration loss on wing traits.

ABSTRACT: Migratory animals exhibit traits that allow them to exploit seasonally variable habitats. In environments where migration is no longer beneficial, such as oceanic islands, migration-association traits may be selected against or be under relaxed selection. Monarch butterflies are best known for their continent-scale migration in North America but have repeatedly become established as nonmigrants in the tropical Americas and on Atlantic and Pacific Islands. These replicated nonmigratory populations provide natural laboratories for understanding the rate of evolution of migration-associated traits. We measured >6,000 museum specimens of monarch butterflies collected from 1856 to the present as well as contemporary wild-caught monarchs from around the world. We determined 1) how wing morpholog

SUBMITTER: Freedman MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7682565 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature