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Inferring the provenance of an alien species with DNA barcodes: the neotropical butterfly Dryas iulia in Thailand

Burg NA 1 , Pradhan A 2 , Gonzalez RM 3 , Morban EZ 3 , Zhen EW 3 , Sakchoowong W 4 Show all authors , Lohman DJ 5

Affiliations 

  • 1 Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Psychology, Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America; Biology Ph.D. Program, Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
  • 2 Biology Department, City College of New York, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America
  • 3 High School for Environmental Studies, New York, New York, United States of America
  • 4 Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, Chatuchak, Bangkok, Thailand
  • 5 Biology Ph.D. Program, Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America; Biology Department, City College of New York, City University of New York, New York, New York, United States of America; Entomology Section, National Museum of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines
PLoS One, 2014;9(8):e104076.
PMID: 25119899 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0104076

Abstract

The Neotropical butterfly Dryas iulia has been collected from several locations in Thailand and Malaysia since 2007, and has been observed breeding in the wild, using introduced Passiflora foetida as a larval host plant. The butterfly is bred by a butterfly house in Phuket, Thailand, for release at weddings and Buddhist ceremonies, and we hypothesized that this butterfly house was the source of wild, Thai individuals. We compared wing patterns and COI barcodes from two, wild Thai populations with individuals obtained from this butterfly house. All Thai individuals resemble the subspecies D. iulia modesta, and barcodes from wild and captive Thai specimens were identical. This unique, Thai barcode was not found in any of the 30 specimens sampled from the wild in the species' native range, but is most similar to specimens from Costa Rica, where many exporting butterfly farms are located. These data implicate the butterfly house as the source of Thailand's wild D. iulia populations, which are currently so widespread that eradication efforts are unlikely to be successful.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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