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Two ways to be endemic. Alps and Apennines are different functional refugia during climatic cycles
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  • Mattia Menchetti,
  • Gerard Talavera,
  • Alessandro Cini,
  • Vania Salvati,
  • Vlad Dinca,
  • Leonardo Platania,
  • Simona Bonelli,
  • Emilio Balletto,
  • Roger Vila,
  • Leonardo Dapporto
Mattia Menchetti
Universita degli Studi di Firenze

Corresponding Author:mattiamen@gmail.com

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Gerard Talavera
Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
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Alessandro Cini
Universita degli Studi di Firenze
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Vania Salvati
Universita degli Studi di Firenze
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Vlad Dinca
University of Guelph
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Leonardo Platania
Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
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Simona Bonelli
Universita degli Studi di Torino
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Emilio Balletto
Universita degli Studi di Torino
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Roger Vila
Institut de Biologia Evolutiva (CSIC-Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
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Leonardo Dapporto
Istituto Comprensivo Materna Elementere Media Convenevole da Prato
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Abstract

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 butterfly fauna. We gathered an extensive occurrence dataset for butterflies of the study area (27,123 records, 269 species, in cells of 0.5x0.5 degrees of latitude-longitude). We applied molecular-based delimitation methods (GMYC model) to 26,557 COI sequences of Western Palearctic butterflies. We identified entities based on molecular delimitations and the most recent checklist of European butterflies and objectively attributed occurrences to their most probable entity. We obtained a zoogeographic regionalisation based on the 69 endemics of the area. Using phylogenetic ANOVA we tested if endemics from different centres differ from each other and from non-endemics for key ecological traits and divergence time. Endemicity showed high incidence in the Alps and Southern Italy. The regionalisation separated the Alps from the Italian Peninsula and Sicily. The endemics of different centres showed a high turnover and differed in phenology and distribution traits. Endemics are on average younger than non-endemics and the Peninsula-Sicily endemics also have lower variance in divergence than those from the Alps. The observed variation identifies Alpine endemics as paleoendemics, now occupying an ecological centre, and the Peninsula-Sicily ones as neoendemics, that diverged in the region since the Pleistocene. The results challenge the common view of the Alpine-Apennine area as a single “Italian refugium”.
15 Oct 2020Submitted to Molecular Ecology
16 Oct 2020Submission Checks Completed
16 Oct 2020Assigned to Editor
26 Oct 2020Reviewer(s) Assigned
30 Nov 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
07 Dec 2020Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
14 Dec 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
14 Dec 20201st Revision Received
21 Dec 2020Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
21 Dec 20202nd Revision Received
21 Dec 2020Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
04 Jan 2021Editorial Decision: Accept
02 Feb 2021Published in Molecular Ecology. 10.1111/mec.15795