Co-evolution of wing colour pattern and vision in butterflies

Study of vision in butterflies

Collaborators: Violaine Llaurens (CNRS/MNHN), Vincent Debat (MNHN)

Butterflies are colourful and recognition of specific wing colour pattern is likely use as a (1) species recognition and (2) mating cue. The evolution of wing colour pattern likely trigger the evolution of colour vision.

Phylogeny of Morpho butterflies genus (from Chazot et al., 2016) split in 2 group: a clade of canopy species (blue line) and a group of understory species (green line). Dimorphism between male (internal pictures) and females (external picture) is variable but often imply differences in blue coloration.

References

Chazot, N., Panara, S., Zilbermann, N., Blandin, P., Le Poul, Y., Cornette, R., et al. (2016) Morpho morphometrics: Shared ancestry and selection drive the evolution of wing size and shape in Morpho butterflies: MORPHO MORPHOMETRICS. Evolution, 70, 181–194.