Ten species in one: DNA barcoding reveals cryptic species in the neotropical skipper butterfly Astraptes fulgerator

doi:10.1073/pnas.0406166101

Ten species in one: DNA barcoding reveals cryptic species in the neotropical skipper butterfly Astraptes fulgerator

^*Department of Zoology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada N1G 2W1; ^‡Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560-0127; and ^§Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104

Contributed by Daniel H. Janzen, August 20, 2004

Abstract

Astraptes fulgerator, first described in 1775, is a common and widely distributed neotropical skipper butterfly (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae). We combine 25 years of natural history observations in northwestern Costa Rica with morphological study and DNA barcoding of museum specimens to show that A. fulgerator is a complex of at least 10 species in this region. Largely sympatric, these taxa have mostly different caterpillar food plants, mostly distinctive caterpillars, and somewhat different ecosystem preferences but only subtly differing adults with no genitalic divergence. Our results add to the evidence that cryptic species are prevalent in tropical regions, a critical issue in efforts to document global species richness. They also illustrate the value of DNA barcoding, especially when coupled with traditional taxonomic tools, in disclosing hidden diversity.

Footnotes

↵ † To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: phebert{at}uoguelph.ca.
Author contributions: P.D.N.H., J.M.B., D.H.J., and W.H. designed research; P.D.N.H., E.H.P., J.M.B., D.H.J., and W.H. performed research; P.D.N.H., E.H.P., J.M.B., D.H.J., and W.H. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; P.D.N.H., E.H.P., J.M.B., D.H.J., and W.H. analyzed data; P.D.N.H., E.H.P., J.M.B., D.H.J., and W.H. wrote the paper; P.D.N.H. and his coworkers provided the laboratory-based protocols and conducted the sequencing for hundreds of specimens; E.H.P. carried out sequencing of hundreds of specimens; J.M.B. carried out classical taxonomic research on the specimens and provided taxonomic wisdom that combined with the sequencing to make sense; D.H.J. and the parataxonamists of the Area de Conservacion Guanacaste found, reared, processed, and recorded data for the specimens used in this study; W.H. had a major role in the caterpillar collection, rearing, and processing and in developing the database for the entire inventory project, including all the specimens in this particular article.
Abbreviations: ACG, Area de Conservación Guanacaste; COI, cytochrome c oxidase I; NJ, neighbor-joining.
Data deposition: The sequences reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database (accession nos. AY666597–AY667060, AY7224411, and AY7224412).