Causes of Old world tropical diversity patterns: the Rajah, Emperor, Forest Queen and Nawab nymphalid butterflies (Charaxes)

我们将首次对Rajah、Emperor、Forest Queen和Nawab等具有象征意义的蝴蝶进行全面的分子系统发育和系统分析，这些蝴蝶跨越了从热带非洲到澳大拉西亚地区的整个范围，建立在大型现有的Charaxes物种（约220-230种已知物种中的约150种）数据集的基础上，并为东南亚/东南亚/澳大拉西亚Polyura组（约26种）增加了近乎完整的物种覆盖范围。我们将使用这一系统发育假说来重建旧大陆热带类群的进化史，并使用最先进的多样化率分析来探索它们的多样性模式。然后，我们将重点关注Indomalayan/ Australasian群岛，我们可以首次使用几乎完整的物种覆盖范围来覆盖Charaxes / Polyura蝴蝶，并将它们在广阔而复杂的岛屿环境中的多样化率与非洲热带动物群的多样性率进行对比，从而推断导致旧大陆热带地区不同多样性模式的原因。这些数据将用于后期的多分类元分析。

We will present the first comprehensive molecular phylogeny and systematic analyses of the emblematic Rajah, Emperor, Forest Queen and Nawab butterflies spanning their entire range from tropical Africa to the Australasian region, building on large existing datasets of Charaxes species (c. 150 of the c. 220-230 known species) and newly adding near-complete species level coverage for the SE / E Asian / Australasian Polyura group (c. 26 species). We will use this phylogenetic hypothesis to reconstruct the evolutionary history of an Old World tropical group and use state-of-the-art diversification rate analyses to explore their diversity patterns. Then we will focus on the Indomalayan/ Australasian archipelago for which we can -for the first time- use an almost complete species level coverage for Charaxes / Polyura butterflies and contrast their diversification rates across a wide and complex insular setting with that of the Afrotropical fauna, making inferences on what causes different diversity patterns across the Old World tropics. These data will be used for multi-taxon meta analyses at a later stage.