Prof. Louis-F Cassar of the Institute of Earth Systems (UM) is one of the co-leads of a recent study which tested the taxonomic boundaries and analysed the genetic and biogeographical relationships across the Western Palaearctic using whole-genome data of the Papilio machaon complex from the Mediterranean Basin. The international team consisted of researchers from the Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier (Université de Montpellier, CNRS), the University of Malta and the Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), together with Adam M Cotton, an independent research specialist on the taxonomy and nomenclature of Papilionidae worldwide.
Among its key findings, the study excludes P. machaon from North Africa on the basis of a taxonomic split between the northern (P. machaon) and southern (Papilio saharae) shores of the Mediterranean. It also corroborates earlier findings of an endemic taxon from Lampedusa previously described by Professor Cassar and colleagues (Papilio saharae aferpilaggi, Cassar, Catania & Cotton, 2023). In the recent article titled “Whole-genome data shed light on speciation and within- species differentiation of the Papilio machaon complex around the Mediterranean Basin”, the authors further discuss how speciation and phylogeographic patterns are in line with past climatic and geological changes of the Mediterranean Basin.
The full article was published in the open access journal Systematic Entomology. Funding for this study was made available through the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and from the Montpellier Bioinformatics Biodiversity platform supported by an “Investissements d’avenir” programme managed by l'Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR).
Cassar, L.-F., Nabholz, B., Reboud, E.L., Chevalier, E., Lafon, B.J., Cotton, A.M. & Condamine, F. L. (2025) Whole-genome data shed light on speciation and within-species differentiation of the Papilio machaon complex around the Mediterranean Basin. Systematic Entomology, 1–21.
Butterfly Photo Credits: G. Bonett.
