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Morphological and chemical analysis of male scent organs in the butterfly genus Pyrgus (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae)

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Abstract

Chemical communication in the family Hesperiidae (Lepidoptera) is practically unstudied, even though this group includes approximately 4,000 species and represents a fifth of the world’s butterfly fauna. We present the first comparative morphological and chemical analysis of scent organs for nine species in the genus Pyrgus, the most species-rich hesperiid genus in the Palearctic region. Our results show that the morphology of the two main male scent organs—the costal fold and the tibial tufts—does not differ between species. The chemical analyses detected a total of 125 different compounds exclusively present in these organs. We document great interspecific differences and much narrower intraspecific variability in the chemical profiles. The dynamics of chemical versus genetic distances indicate two different phases: a faster (but more variable) initial chemical divergence at lower genetic divergences (probably related to speciation) and a slower but more constant differentiation (drift). As a result most species can be identified based on their chemical profiles, except for a closely related species pair (P. malvae/P. malvoides) for which hybridisation is common in the contact zone. Our results suggest that the Hesperiidae is a group with great potential for the study of chemical communication that deserves further attention.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Vlad Dincă (Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, and Institut de Biologia Evolutiva CSIC-UPF, Barcelona, Spain) for his help in obtaining samples and genetic analyses. We are also grateful to Rosa Sedano (Laboratory GC-LC, SIDI from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) for performing the chromatography analyses and to Esperanza Salvador, Enrique Rodríguez, and Isidoro Poveda (Laboratory SEM-EDX, SIDI from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) for help with scanning electron microscope images. Andrew Warren (McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, University of Florida, USA) very kindly shared his knowledge on Hesperiidae with us. Funding for this research was provided by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (project EME2007-33 to J.L.H.-R., R.B. and R.V.) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (project CGL2010-21226/BOS to J.L.H.-R. and R.V. and project CGL2004-04680-c10-08/BOS to M.L.M.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología (Zoología), Facultad de Ciencias de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C/Darwin, 2, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Juan L. Hernández-Roldán & Miguel L. Munguira

  2. Facultat de Ciències, Departament de Química, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Spain

    Roger Bofill

  3. Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Headington, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK

    Leonardo Dapporto

  4. Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra), Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta, 37, 08003, Barcelona, Spain

    Roger Vila

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  1. Juan L. Hernández-Roldán
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Correspondence to Roger Vila.

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Hernández-Roldán, J.L., Bofill, R., Dapporto, L. et al. Morphological and chemical analysis of male scent organs in the butterfly genus Pyrgus (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae). Org Divers Evol 14, 269–278 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13127-014-0170-x

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