Dispersal has recently gained much attention because of its crucial role in the conservation and evolution of species facing major environmental changes such as habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change, and their interactions. Butterflies have long been recognized as ideal model systems for the study of dispersal and a huge amount of data on their ability to disperse has been collected un...

One of the ecological functions green open space (RTH) is to accommodate biodiversity in urban areas by providing a habitat for wild plants and animals. Pollution, urbanization, various other environmental pressures make spaces more susceptible disturbances, both natural due human activities, which can affect existence within them, including butterflies, have specificity sensitivity certain con...

The "oscillation hypothesis" has been proposed as a general explanation for the exceptional diversification of herbivorous insect species. The hypothesis states that speciation rates are elevated through repeated correlated changes--oscillations--in degree of host plant specificity and geographic range. The aim of this study is to test one of the predictions from the oscillation hypothesis: a p...

Lepidopterans (butterflies and moths) are a rich and diverse order of insects, which, despite their economic impact and unusual biological properties, are relatively underrepresented in terms of genomic resources. The genome of the silkworm Bombyx mori has been fully sequenced, but comparative lepidopteran genomics has been hampered by the scarcity of information for other species. This is espe...

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, focus...