As published in the journal Scientific Reports , 28% of these insects could still be undiscovered in our territory. The map contains 3,500 sequences of all species, which have been compared with those in the rest of Europe.
Its development has been directed by the CSIC researcher Roger Vila, from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (a mixed center of the CSIC and the Pompeu Fabra University), who began to sequence the mitochondrial DNA of all known species, 228 in total, and the main peninsular butterfly populations. After making this comparison, the scientists believe that 28% of the species analyzed contain DNA sequences from highly divergent lineages.
It could be “cryptic species”, as those that are so morphologically similar that they appear the same are known. However, analysis of their DNA reveals that, in reality, a remarkable part of the populations have had a long independent evolutionary history. This implies that within that 28% of species there could be others that have gone unnoticed.
According to Vila, now begins the arduous work of studying in detail case by case, to see which are really new species and which are simply subspecies. The CSIC researcher believes that many of the butterflies look the same to us because they have distinctive characteristics that are invisible to us. But DNA analysis allows reaching a level of differentiation unthinkable until a few years ago.
The authors of the study hope that it will serve to carry out future research on the diversity of butterflies and to improve conservation, avoiding mixing divergent lineages. Some data show that butterflies, like bees, are in danger. “In Europe, the Lepidopteran population has halved in the last twenty years. We are in a race against time to understand and protect biodiversity “, concludes the CSIC researcher.
