Gerard Talavera

• PhD
• Researcher at Institut Botànic de Barcelona

Migratory behaviour has repeatedly evolved across taxa as an adaptation to heterogeneity in space and time. However, insect migration is still poorly understood, partly because of the lack of field data. The painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui undertakes a long-distance annual migration between Europe and Africa. While spring flights from the Mag...

Modelling ecological niches of migratory animals requires incorporating a temporal dimension, in addition to space. Here, we introduce an approach to model multigenerational migratory insects using time-partitioned environmental variables (by months and years) and time- and behaviour-partitioned records (breeding records to model reproductive habit...

Migration is typically associated with risk and uncertainty at the population level, but little is known about its cost and benefit trade-offs at the species level. Migratory insects in particular often exhibit strong demographic fluctuations due to local bottlenecks and outbreaks. Here, we use genomic data to investigate levels of heterozygosity a...

Migratory insects are key players in ecosystem functioning and services, but their spatiotemporal distributions are typically poorly known. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) may be used to predict species seasonal distributions, but the resulting hypotheses should eventually be validated by field data. The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) perf...

The extent of aerial flows of insects circulating around the planet and their impact on ecosystems and biogeography remain enigmatic because of methodological challenges. Here we report a transatlantic crossing by Vanessa cardui butterflies spanning at least 4200 km, from West Africa to South America (French Guiana) and lasting between 5 and 8 days...

The painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui is renowned for its virtually cosmopolitan distribution and the remarkable long-distance migrations as part of its annual, multigenerational migratory cycle. In winter, V. cardui individuals inhabit breeding grounds north and south of the Sahara, suggesting distinct migratory behaviors within the species as...

Some insects, such as the painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui, exhibit complex annual migratory cycles spanning multiple generations. Traversing extensive seas or deserts is often a required segment of these migratory journeys. We develop a bioavailable strontium isoscape for Europe and Africa and then use isotope geolocation combining hydrogen a...

The interplay between geographic barriers and climatic oscillations over the past 2.6 million years structured genetic variation at the continental scale. The genetic legacy of the Quaternary ice ages (GLQ) hypothesis outlines this phenomenon for Europe, but a comprehensive data-driven assessment is lacking. Using innovative genetic landscape metho...

Migration is a complex behavior involving the synchronisation of many physiological and behavioral processes. Environmental cues must thus be interpreted to make decisions regarding resource allocation between, for example, migration or reproduction. In butterflies, the lack of host plants to sustain a new generation may indicate the need to migrat...

Chromosomal rearrangements are crucial in speciation, acting as barriers to gene flow. Holocentric chromosomes, such as those in Lepidoptera, can facilitate karyotype changes. Despite chromosome fusions being more common, speciation events are mostly linked to fissions. Notable karyotypic variation is observed in three clades of the subfamily Polyo...

Molecular identification of pollen carried by insects informs about their history of visited plants. For migratory butterflies, it can be used to trace long-range movements enduring days of flight over thousands of kilometers. Here, we present a protocol to (1) isolate pollen grains from butterfly bodies and (2) prepare metabarcoding libraries for...

Migratory insects may move in large numbers, even surpassing migratory vertebrates in biomass. Long-distance migratory insects complete annual cycles through multiple generations, with each generation’s reproductive success linked to the resources available at different breeding grounds. Climatic anomalies in these grounds are presumed to trigger r...

Glacial cycles lead to periodic population interbreeding and isolation in warm‐adapted species, which impact genetic structure and evolution. However, the effects of these processes on highly mobile and more cold‐tolerant species are not well understood. This study aims to shed light on the phylogeographic history of Aglais urticae , a butterfly sp...

Hypolimnas misippus is a Batesian mimic of the toxic African Queen butterfly (Danaus chrysippus). Female H. misippus butterflies use two major wing patterning loci (M and A) to imitate three color morphs of D. chrysippus found in different regions of Africa. In this study, we examine the evolution of the M locus and identify it as an example of ada...

Understanding how different organisms cope with changing temperatures is vital for predicting future species' distributions and highlighting those at risk from climate change. As ectotherms, butterflies are sensitive to temperature changes, but the factors affecting butterfly thermoregulation are not fully understood. We investigated which factors...

Rationale Many insect species undertake multigenerational migrations in the Afro‐tropical and Palearctic ranges, and understanding their migratory connectivity remains challenging due to their small size, short life span and large population sizes. Hydrogen isotopes ( δ ² H) can be used to reconstruct the movement of dispersing or migrating insects...

The painted lady butterfly Vanessa cardui is renowned for its virtually cosmopolitan distribution and the remarkable long-distance migrations that are part of its annual, multi-generational migratory cycle. Recently, V. cardui individuals were found north and south of the Sahara in the autumn, suggesting distinct migratory behaviours within the spe...

Rationale: Many insect species undertake multi-generational migrations in the Afro-tropical and Palearctic ranges, and understanding their migratory connectivity remains challenging due to their small size, short life span and large population sizes. Hydrogen isotope ( δ H) can be used to reconstruct the movement of dispersing or migrating insects,...

Hypolimnas misippus is a Batesian mimic of the toxic African Queen butterfly (Danaus chrysippus). Female H. misippus butterflies use two major wing patterning loci (M and A) to imitate the four colour morphs of D. chrysippus found in different regions of Africa. In this study, we examine the evolution of the M locus and identify it as an example of...

Introduced species provide the opportunity to study evolutionary change on short time scales—a key first step to understand and manage the ecosystem-level impact of invasions. This study examined mitochondrial DNA sequence variation in cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) for 26 insect species—Coleoptera (9), Hymenoptera (9), and Lepidoptera (8)—in...

Butterfly migration across great distances is testimony to their impressive aeronautical skills. Wing size and shape are two key determinants of flight performance, and in butterflies, the specific configuration of forewings to hindwings including the overlapping area between them can have profound effects on overall size and shape. Here we use qua...

Butterflies are a diverse and charismatic insect group that are thought to have evolved with plants and dispersed throughout the world in response to key geological events. However, these hypotheses have not been extensively tested because a comprehensive phylogenetic framework and datasets for butterfly larval hosts and global distributions are la...

Africa has undergone a progressive aridification during the last 20 My that presumably impacted organisms and fostered the evolution of life history adaptations. We test the hypothesis that shift to living in ant nests and feeding on ant brood by larvae of phyto-predaceous Lepidochrysops butterflies was an adaptive response to the aridification of...

Seasonal environmental fluctuations provide formidable challenges for living organisms, especially small ectotherms such as butterflies. A common strategy to cope with harsh environments is to enter diapause, but some species avoid unsuitable conditions by migrating. Despite a growing understanding of migration in the life cycles of some butterfly...

The oogenesis-flight syndrome reflects the temporal allocation of energy resources between dispersal / migration and reproduction and is a key concept in research on migratory behaviour in animals. In migratory butterflies, host plant abundance and quality may act as environmental cues to switch between the two states, but the mechanisms regulating...

Anthropogenic activities are exposing insects to elevated levels of toxic metals and are altering the bioavailability of essential metals. Metals and metal isotopes have also become promising tools for the geolocation of migratory insects. Understanding the pathways of metal incorporation in insect tissues is thus important for assessing the role o...

Hydrogen isotope geolocation of insects is based on the assumption that the chitin in the wings of adult migratory insects preserves the hydrogen isotope composition (δ²H) of the larval stages without influence of adult diet. Here, we test this assumption by conducting laboratory feeding experiments for monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) includ...

We investigated the entire butterfly fauna of the Samoan Archipelago (Pacific Ocean) by combining COI barcode sequences for specimens from these islands with those available in repositories at larger biogeographic scale. Haplotype networks and a generalized mixed Yule-coalescent (GMYC) model were applied to identify evolutionary significant units (...

Seasonal environmental fluctuations provide formidable challenges for living organisms, especially small ectotherms such as butterflies. A common strategy to cope with harsh environments is to enter diapause, but some species avoid the unsuitable conditions by migrating. Despite a growing understanding of migration in the life cycles of some butter...

Anthropogenic activities are exposing insects to abnormal levels of toxic metals, with unknown implications for migratory insects. Simultaneously, metals and metal isotopes have become promising tools for the geolocation of migratory insects. Furthering our understanding of metal cycling in insect tissues is essential, both for the development of m...

One of the main consequences of globalization is the intensification of biological introductions. Because of their negative impact on environments, the early detection and monitoring of introduced species through molecular approaches is gaining increased uptake. This study assembles 2,278 DNA barcode records to examine contemporary patterns of sequ...

Characterization of gene family expansions and crossing over is crucial for understanding how organisms adapt to the environment. Here, we develop a high-density linkage map and detailed genome annotation of the painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) - a non-diapausing, highly polyphagous species famous for its long-distance migratory behavior and...

Motivation: Butterflies represent a model in biology and a flagship group for invertebrate conservation. We provide four new resources for the Western Palaearctic butterflies: (1) an updated checklist comprising 552 species; (2) a curated dataset of 32,126 mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences for 532 species, including a de...

The study of ecological interactions between plants, phytophagous insects and their natural enemies is an essential but challenging component for understanding ecosystem dynamics. Molecular methods such as DNA barcoding can help elucidate these interactions. In this study, we employed DNA barcoding to establish hostplant and parasitoid interactions...

Migration is typically associated with risk and uncertainty at the population level, but little is known about its cost and benefit trade-offs at the species level. Migratory insects often exhibit strong demographic fluctuations due to local bottlenecks and outbreaks. Here, we use genomic data to investigate levels of heterozygosity and long-term p...

Butterflies are a diverse and charismatic insect group that are thought to have diversified via coevolution with plants and in response to dispersals following key geological events. These hypotheses have been poorly tested at the macroevolutionary scale because a comprehensive phylogenetic framework and datasets on global distributions and larval...

Gene family expansions and crossing over are two main mechanisms for the generation of novel genetic variants that can be picked up by natural selection. Here, we developed a high-density, pedigree-based linkage map of the painted lady butterfly ( Vanessa cardui ) - a non-diapausing, highly polyphagous species famous for its long-distance migratory...

Biological invasions are a grave threat to ecosystems. The black garden ant (Lasiusniger) is a pest species in Europe. Current literature states that L. niger occupies a disjunct native distribution in the Holarctic, however, based on recent work, we re-evaluate this distribution. The native range of L. niger is reconsidered based on phylogenetic r...

Although both positive (expansion of thermophilous species) and negative effects (retraction of cold‐adapted species) have been attributed to global warming, range shifts may be constrained by the ecological traits of species. This can be especially true for highly specialised organisms like the Spanish Greenish Black‐tip ( Euchloe bazae ), an Iber...

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Vanessa atalanta (the red admiral; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Nymphalidae). The genome sequence is 370 megabases in span. The majority of the assembly (99.44%) is scaffolded into 32 chromosomal pseudomolecules, with the W and Z sex chromosome assembled. Gene annotation of this assembly o...

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Vanessa cardui (the painted lady; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Nymphalidae). The genome sequence is 425 megabases in span. The majority of the assembly is scaffolded into 32 chromosomal pseudomolecules, with the W and Z sex chromosome assembled. Gene annotation of this assembly on Ensembl...

Taxa are frequently labeled incertae sedis when their placement is debated at ranks above the species level, such as their subgeneric, generic or subtribal placement. This is a pervasive problem in groups with complex systematics due to difficulties in identifying suitable synapomorphies. In this study, we propose combining DNA barcodes with a mult...

Male butterflies in the hyperdiverse tribe Eumaeini possess an unusually complex and diverse repertoire of secondary sexual characteristics involved in pheromone production and dissemination. Maintaining multiple sexually selected traits is likely to be metabolically costly, potentially resulting in trade-offs in the evolution of male signals. Howe...

Endemics co‐occur because they evolved in situ and persist regionally or because they evolved ex situ and later dispersed to shared habitats, generating evolutionary or ecological endemicity centres, respectively. We investigate whether different endemicity centres can intertwine in the region ranging from Alps to Sicily, by studying their butterfl...

Although best known for its extraordinary radiations of endemic plant species, the South African fynbos is home to a great diversity of phytophagous insects, including butterflies in the genus Chrysoritis (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae). These butterflies are remarkably uniform morphologically; nevertheless, they comprise 43 currently accepted species an...

Satyrinae butterflies occurring in the Mediterranean apparently have reduced gene flow over sea straits, and for several species, recent wide-scale biodiversity surveys indicate the existence of divergent mitochondrial lineages. Here, we apply an integrative approach and examine the phylogeography of the genus Lasiommata in the Western Palearctic....

The multi-locus phylogenetic tree for all European butterfly species. Families and subfamilies are indicated, as well as supports for nodes (BS support, see legend).

The small cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae , is a major agricultural pest of cruciferous crops and has been introduced to every continent except South America and Antarctica as a result of human activities. In an effort to reconstruct the near-global invasion history of P. rapae , we developed a citizen science project, the “Pieris Project,” a...

Understanding the dynamics of biodiversity, including the spatial distribution of genetic diversity, is critical for predicting responses to environmental changes, as well as for effective conservation measures. This task requires tracking changes in biodiversity at large spatial scales and correlating with species functional traits. We provide thr...

Insects account for a large portion of Earth's biodiversity and are key players for ecosystems, notably as pollinators. While insect migration is suspected to represent a natural phenomenon of major importance, remarkably little is known about it, except for a few flagship species. The reason for this situation is mainly due to technical limitation...

A major goal of invasion and climate change biology research is to understand the ecological and evolutionary responses of organisms to anthropogenic disturbance, especially over large spatial and temporal scales. One significant, and sometimes unattainable, challenge of these studies is garnering sufficient numbers of relevant specimens, especiall...

The role of specialization in diversification can be explored along two geological axes in the butterfly family Lycaenidae. In addition to variation in host-plant specialization normally exhibited by butterflies, the caterpillars of most Lycaenidae have symbioses with ants ranging from no interactions through to obligate and specific associations,...

Aim Continents harbour unique faunas, and only a small percentage of species naturally inhabit more than a single continent. This pattern is most evident in the insects, a morphologically small and extremely diverse group. Nevertheless, 12 species of ants have traditionally been recognized as native to both North America and Eurasia, the Holarctic...

The Palearctic–African migratory circuit has been typically associated with birds. Very few insects are known to endure annual trans-Saharan circuits, but the Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) is an exception. While it was demonstrated that this species massively migrates from Europe to the Afrotropics during the autumn, the existence of a re...

Insects account for the main fraction of Earth's biodiversity and are key players for ecosystems, notably as pollinators. While insect migration is suspected to represent a natural phenomenon of major importance, remarkably little is known about it, except for a few flagship species. The reason for this situation is mainly due to technical limitati...

Butterflies (Papilionoidea), with over 18,000 described species [1], have captivated naturalists and scientists for centuries. They play a central role in the study of speciation, community ecology, biogeography, climate change, and plant-insect interactions and include many model organisms and pest species [2, 3]. However, a robust higher-level ph...

Nepenthes is a genus of carnivorous pitcher plants with high intra- and interspecific morphological diversity. Many species produce dimorphic pitchers, and the relative production rate of the two morphs varies interspecifically. Despite their probable ecological importance to the plants, little is known about the selective context under which vario...

The pierid Euchloe tagis (Hübner, 1804) is recorded for the first time in the province of Tarragona, Catalonia, Iberian Peninsula. DNA barcoding was shown to allow the unambiguous identification of all Iberian Euchloe species and confirmed the morphology-based identification of the E. tagis specimen from Tarragona. DNA barcodes also revealed that t...

The painted lady, Vanessa cardui, is a migratory butterfly that performs an annual multi-generational migration between Europe and North Africa. Its seasonal appearance south of the Sahara in autumn is well known and has led to the suggestion that it results from extremely long migratory flights by European butterflies to seasonally exploit the Sah...

Information on wing-wear categories, stable isotope analysis, and natal origin assignments to potential migrants are given as well as the acknowledgements

Supplementary material from "Long-distance autumn migration across the Sahara by painted lady butterflies: exploiting resource pulses in the tropical savannah"

Discovering cryptic species in well-studied areas and taxonomic groups can have profound implications in understanding eco-evolutionary processes and in nature conservation because such groups often involve research models and act as flagship taxa for nature management. In this study we use an array of techniques to study the butterflies in the Spi...

Aim Biogeographically puzzling taxa represent an opportunity to understand the processes that have shaped current species distributions. The systematic placement and biogeographical history of Elkalyce cogina , a small lycaenid butterfly endemic to Brazil and neighbouring Argentina, are long‐standing puzzles. We use molecular tools and novel biogeo...

Background There is a widely recognized need for more comprehensive understanding of patterns of global biodiversity. Such information will not only provide insights into major scientific issues, such as speciation mechanisms, but it will also add new rigor to conservation programs (a critical need given the looming extinction crisis). We exploit t...

How common are cryptic species-those overlooked because of their morphological similarity? Despite its wide-ranging implications for biology and conservation, the answer remains open to debate. Butterflies constitute the best-studied invertebrates, playing a similar role as birds do in providing models for vertebrate biology. An accurate assessment...

Aim We analyse the taxonomic status, phylogenetic relationships, distribution and age of a newly discovered ant taxon found in the mountaintops of the island of Mallorca (Spain). We also consider the potential impact of short-term climate change on the survival of this ant and make proposals on its conserva- tion status, risks and management. Loc...

Aim We analyse the taxonomic status, phylogenetic relationships, distribution and age of a newly discovered ant taxon found in the mountaintops of the island of Mallorca (Spain). We also consider the potential impact of short‐term climate change on the survival of this ant and make proposals on its conservation status, risks and management. Locati...

Of the four most diverse insect orders, Lepidoptera contains remarkably few predatory and parasitic species. While species with these habits have evolved multiple times in moths and butterflies, they have rarely been associated with diversification. The wholly aphytophagous subfamily Miletinae (Lycaenidae) is an exception, consisting of nearly 140...

1. The generalized mixed Yule-coalescent (GMYC) model has become one of the most popular approaches for species delimitation based on single-locus data, and it is widely used in biodiversity assessments and phylogenetic community ecology. We here examine an array of factors affecting GMYC resolution (tree reconstruction method, taxon sampling cover...

When dissimilarity matrices of faunistic and phylogenetic beta-diversity turnover indices are projected in dendrograms, a high frequency of ties and zero values produces trees whose topology and bootstrap support are affected by the order of areas in the original presence–absence matrix. We tested the magnitude of this bias and developed R function...

Most taxonomists agree on the need to adapt current classifications to recognize monophyletic units. However, delineations between higher taxonomic units can be based on the relative ages of different lineages and⁄or the level of morphological differentiation. In this paper, we address these issues in considering the species-rich Polyommatus sectio...

Efforts to solve higher-level evolutionary relationships within the class Insecta by using mitochondrial genomic data are hindered due to fast sequence evolution of several groups, most notably Hymenoptera, Strepsiptera, Phthiraptera, Hemiptera and Thysanoptera. Accelerated rates of substitution on their sequences have been shown to have negative c...

Aim To study the biogeographical factors responsible for the current disjunct distributions of two closely related species of butterflies (Pyrgus cinarae and Pyrgus sidae, Lepidoptera: Hesperioidea). Both species have small populations in the Iberian Peninsula that are isolated by more than 1000 km from their nearest conspecifics. Because these spe...

Uncovering cryptic biodiversity is essential for understanding evolutionary processes and patterns of ecosystem functioning, as well as for nature conservation. As European butterflies are arguably the best-studied group of invertebrates in the world, the discovery of a cryptic species, twenty years ago, within the common wood white Leptidea sinapi...

Species generally have a fixed number of chromosomes in the cell nuclei while between-species differences are common and often pronounced. These differences could have evolved through multiple speciation events, each involving the fixation of a single chromosomal rearrangement. Alternatively, marked changes in the karyotype may be the consequence o...