The evolution of ecologically important characters in Heliconius butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae): a cladistic review

The biology of Heliconius butterflies has provided a rich source of data to test theories of ecological genetics, coevolution and community ecology. Many putatively adaptive characters have been discussed with reference to a phylogenetic hypothesis based on a variety of morphological and life-history traits interpreted from an evolutionary taxonomic perspective. Here, alternate interpretations of characters on the traditional tree and a more recent mitochondrial DNA cladogram with a substantially different topology are compared and contrasted. It is shown that many characters ostensibly providing support for the traditional phylogenetic hypothesis are almost equally parsimoniously distributed and in some cases more parsimoniously distributed on the mtDNA tree than on the tree inferred from those characters. Discussion of alternate evolutionary scenarios based on the mDNA-based topology is presented for pupal mating, pollen feeding, foodplant coevolution, and other ecologically significant features.