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ViewAttendees 1

10-Minute Paper

Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity

SysEB: Evolution and Phylogenetics 3

Deep computer vision illuminates the multifunctional adaptive nature of wing melanism in the alpine butterfly Parnassius smintheus

Wednesday, November 8, 2023
9:00 AM – 9:12 AM ET
Location: Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor 10
In-Person

    Presenting Author(s)

  • LR

    Leslie Ries

    Georgetown University
    Washington, District of Columbia

    • Co-Author(s)

  • VS

    Vaughn Shirey

    Ph.D. Candidate/Postdoctoral Fellow
    Georgetown University
    Washington, District of Columbia

    • Co-Author(s)

  • RG

    Rhea Goswami

    Georgetown University
    Washington, District of Columbia

  • GL

    Gregory Latronica

    Georgetown University
    Washington, District of Columbia

  • AG

    Arshan Goudarzi

    Georgetown University
    Washington, District of Columbia

  • NN

    Naresh Neupane

    Research Assistant Professor
    Georgetown University
    Washington, District of Columbia

The typically alpine butterfly Parnassius smintheus, Doubleday, [1847] (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae) is distributed from northern New Mexico to southern Yukon Territory and expresses remarkable morphological variation across its broad latitudinal range. As a cold-adapted butterfly species, melanism on the wings is crucial for thermoregulation yet this has not been examined a large spatial scales. Additionally, the melanism-size hypothesis states that there may be a trade-off in investment in size versus melanism. Using deep computer vision applied to over 1,600 images of the species for natural history collections, we investigated the role of climate in predicting wing size, melanism, and the potential trade-off between the two factors. Notably, we find that the importance of environment in predicting all three traits is mediated by both sex and wing (forewing versus hindwing) with trends in female hindwings supporting both the thermal-melanism and antidessication-melanism hypotheses. Trends in males are driven largely by temperature alone. Taken together, our results highlight the multifunctional importance of melanism in this species that is dependent on sex and wing.