title: Phylogeny and Evolution of Lepidoptera.
abstract: Until recently, deep-level phylogeny in Lepidoptera, the largest single radiation of plant-feeding insects, was very poorly understood. Over the past two decades, building on a preceding era of morphological cladistic studies, molecular data have yielded robust initial estimates of relationships both within and among the ∼43 superfamilies, with unsolved problems now yielding to much larger data sets from high-throughput sequencing. Here we summarize progress on lepidopteran phylogeny since 1975, emphasizing the superfamily level, and discuss some resulting advances in our understanding of lepidopteran evolution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742; email: cmitter@umd.edu.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mitter
authors.affiliation: Department of Entomology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560.
authors.forename: Donald R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Davis
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Molecular Evolution, Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742.
authors.forename: Michael P
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Cummings
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D007915:Lepidoptera / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny
keywords: Hexapoda; butterfly; classification; insect; molecular systematics; moth; systematics