The assembly of host-specific microbiota is critical for health and functioning of many insect pollinators. While social pollinators maintain core microbiota through social transmissions, the factors driving microbiota assembly in solitary pollinators remain poorly understood. Lepidoptera are an important group of pollinators, but microbiome research has largely focused on their larval stage, while nectar feeding adults have been widely ignored. Field-based studies of the adult butterfly microbiota are rare and geographically and taxonomically restricted. Here, we characterize the microbiota of adult butterflies from natural environments along elevational and temporal gradients across two continents spanning the Neotropical and Palearctic realms. Microbiota diversity and composition were primarily explained by host taxonomic identity, whereas geographic location and temperature had little effect. We found common core microbiota conserved across seven butterfly subfamilies from temperate and tropical regions, which include lactic acid bacteria (LAB), acetic acid bacteria (AAB), and even some bee-associated taxa. Together, our results demonstrate that host taxonomic identity, rather than environmental drivers, is the dominant force structuring the microbiota of adult butterflies. This highlights that the host-filtering capacity of solitary species has been largely underestimated, challenging previous assumptions that the microbiota of this important pollinator group is primarily environmentally driven and of limited functional significance.

Insects are of crucial importance for terrestrial ecosystems, but many populations decline rapidly. Conventional collecting methods are usually time-consuming, resulting in a low temporal, spatial and taxonomic resolution of data. Automated camera light traps (CLTs) allow non-lethal monitoring of species-rich moths (Lepidoptera) and other nocturnal insects, but so far little is known about their performance compared to conventional collecting methods. By observing the behaviour of moths in previous field work, we hypothesised that CLTs perform well in moth groups in which species tend to sit down quietly after approaching the lamp (such as Geometridae) but worse in moth groups in which species are persistently active (such as Sphingidae). We tested the performance of two CLTs, equipped with Sony alpha 7II (24 megapixel sensor) cameras that resulted in images with approx. Four hundred twenty dpi resolution. The study was carried out in a forested area near Bielefeld in NW Germany for 196 nights in a row from March to October 2023, and photos were taken every 2 min during the night. All macromoths recognisable in the photographs were identified and counted individually. We directly compared the data from the CLTs with moth samples obtained from conventional funnel light traps (FLTs) during 12 nights which were spread across the flight season. The resulting images from the CLTs allowed reliable species identification of all observed macromoths with only a few exceptions due to technical problems. In direct comparison during 12 nights, CLTs recorded 39 species exclusively, FLTs recorded 48 species exclusively, and 53 species were recorded by both methods equally. During the whole sampling period of 196 nights in a row, a total of 225 moth species were recorded by CLTs. We found six indicator species for CLTs (all Geometridae) and one species for FLT, a hawkmoth species. Families differed in the length to which they remained on the screen of the CLTs. Our study was the first to systematically compare the methods and it shows that CLTs perform overall very well. Results from CLTs differ to a certain extent from conventional trapping methods because they seem to perform worse in groups with highly active species and perform better in calmer groups like geometrid moths. CLTs are promising devices for insect monitoring since they deliver data with high resolution in time, space and taxonomy. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) for the analysis of images is intended as the next logic step

ABSTRACT Tropical rainforests are the most species‐rich terrestrial habitats and provide distinct niches for specialization and speciation, in part due to their vertical stratification. Stratification is observed in many insect orders as a result of abiotic factors, resource availability, competition, and behavior. Here, we investigate five clades of Lepidoptera, which differ in many aspects of their ecology and traits. We aim for a better understanding of the stratification patterns of Erebidae‐Arctiinae, Geometridae, Hedylidae, Saturniidae, and Sphingidae. The study was carried out in a tropical rainforest of the Chocó region in NW Ecuador in 2021 and 2022. We used funnel traps equipped with weak UV‐lamps to sample moths simultaneously in the canopy and understory in four forest habitats. We identified species using reference collections and DNA barcoding and present a qualitatively unique database for Neotropical rainforests, with 12,472 individuals of 676 species collected in 48 nightly catches. Average species richness was higher in the understory (73.54 ± 22.58) than in the canopy (59.09 ± 17.24), and median sample sizes were similar (understory: 217.5 (160.5–336), canopy: 187.5 (138–328.5)). We found taxon‐specific patterns: Arctiinae and Sphingidae—the stronger flyers—were more species‐rich and abundant in the canopy, and weaker flyers Geometridae and Saturniidae were more species‐rich and abundant in the understory. We assume that predation pressure, availability of nectar and host plants shape the vertical distribution of moth assemblages. Communities largely overlapped, were highly nested in each stratum and between habitat types, and differences in composition among habitats were mainly driven by elevation. We found more species in regenerating forests compared to old growth forests, while sample size was only marginally influenced by trap height but independent of elevation, temperature, and humidity.

Conserving the remaining primary forests and restoring forests on former agricultural lands are two key strategies to conserve biodiversity in the tropics. Natural regrowth of forest following the abandonment of agricultural land use is one way of forest restoration and thus, it is important to understand how biodiversity shifts with ongoing recovery and whether communities become more similar over time to those in old-growth forests. We studied patterns of taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity as well as community composition of Saturniidae, as one of the most conspicuous and well-studied families of moths. Our study covered a forest recovery gradient from active agriculture via early and advanced stages of regrowth to old-growth rainforests in the lowland Choc & oacute; region of Ecuador. Saturniidae diversity patterns did not follow the hypothesized increase from agriculture to old-growth forest, but instead, the highest taxonomic and functional diversity was found in early regrowth, and the highest phylogenetic diversity in active agriculture. Diversity differences along the forest recovery gradient were overall weak and occurred mainly when focusing on common and dominant species, but community composition showed a gradual turnover with the strongest differences between old-growth forest and active agriculture. Our results show that diverse Saturniidae communities are found in naturally recovering tropical forests. But although Saturniidae have been recommended as indicator species due to their well-documented taxonomy, our results suggest that they are not well suited as indicators of forest recovery. Nevertheless, due to their striking appearance, Saturniidae could serve as flagship species for the conservation of tropical forests.

Body weight is a key trait in insects, reflecting size, condition, and energetic status. It also influences their flight performance, reproduction, and ecological interactions. Yet most ecological and taxonomic studies rely on preserved rather than living individuals, despite the substantial mass loss caused by drying and other curatorial procedures. We quantified how preservation affects body mass in moths (Lepidoptera) using three complementary datasets representing major workflows: laboratory-reared Spodoptera littoralis (Boisduval, 1833), freshly collected moths from Germany, and frozen geometrid specimens from Peru. Across datasets, body weight declined markedly across developmental stages and preservation states, with only partial recovery after rehydration. In S. littoralis, females were consistently heavier than males, while egg presence did not influence female mass. By integrating results across workflows, we derived practical correction factors for estimating fresh body weight from dry specimens. These order-level approximations substantially improve the ecological value of preserved material by allowing body-mass data from museum collections to reflect the mass of living insects more accurately. Applying such corrections enhances the reliability of trait-based and comparative analyses that depend on preserved Lepidoptera.

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to stop biodiversity losses1. Approximately 60% of tropical forests have already been lost or severely degraded2, making restoration essential to achieve conservation goals. Recovery trajectories of trees have been studied intensively3,4, but a comprehensive understanding of biodiversity recovery is lacking. Here we analyse recovery trajectories across trophic levels including 16 taxonomic groups from three kingdoms in a lowland tropical forest by investigating resistance to perturbation, recovery times and return rates to old-growth forest conditions. Abundance and diversity regained more than 90% and composition approximately 75% similarity to old-growth forests within 30 years, but full recovery takes several decades. Mobile animal communities acting as seed dispersers or pollinators had high resistance levels and recovered faster than trees or tree seedlings. Return rates contributed 1-2.5 times more than resistance to the recovery times of species composition. Taxon-specific recovery times could not be explained by simple mechanisms (life-history strategies, trophic level or mobility). We show the enormous potential of protecting naturally recovering secondary forests to stop and reverse biodiversity losses.

Vertical stratification is a prominent driver of forest biodiversity. As canopy cover is lost rapidly worldwide, it is crucial to understand the role of stratification in maintaining and restoring key ecological processes during forest succession, such as pollination. Within a well-resolved recovery chronosequence in the northwestern Ecuadorian rainforest, we compiled an extensive database of over 20,000 diurnal and nocturnal pollinators and 2,000 interactions with plants and examined the interacting effects of recovery age and stratification on pollinator community recovery and interaction network reassembly. Stratification was a stronger predictor of pollinator abundance, alpha-diversity, functional richness, and beta-diversity than forest legacy (successional vs. old-growth). While most groups were strongly associated with canopies (moths, social bees, and nocturnal bees), orchid bees exhibited an inverse pattern. Across the entire chronosequence (0–38 years of recovery, plus old-growth forests), recovery status and stratification had significant, but group-dependent, effects on pollinator abundance and diversity. Interaction networks were most diverse and distinct in canopies, and the highest pollinator and interaction diversity was found in old-growth canopies. In successional forests, networks were comparable in size to active disturbance and early recovery only when both strata were combined. The largest and most generalized networks were found in well-connected old-growth forests, which harbored twice as many interactions as in other recovery stages when both strata were combined. Our study underlines the importance of stratification in supporting pollinator diversity during tropical forest succession and highlights the role of old canopies in safeguarding a diverse pool of pollinator species.

Insects make up the majority of all animal species, with 70% occurring in the tropics1, yet the impacts of warming on tropical insects remain highly uncertain2. This stems from sparse, taxonomically biased data on thermal tolerance of tropical insects and an incomplete understanding of the underlying physiological mechanisms3. Here we compared environmental temperatures with field-measured upper and lower thermal tolerance limits of around 2,300 insect species along Afrotropical and Neotropical elevational gradients and identified genomic signatures of thermal tolerance across the insect tree of life. We show that thermal tolerances do not proportionally track environmental temperatures but approach an asymptote in tropical lowlands. Insects at high elevations utilize plasticity to cope with rising temperatures, whereas lowland species have limited plastic abilities. Heat tolerance showed strong differences among insect orders and families, reflected in the thermal stability of proteins, suggesting that variation in thermal tolerance is founded in the fundamental protein architecture. Up to 52% of future surface temperatures and 38% of air temperatures in the Amazonian lowlands can cause heat mortality in half of the studied community. Our data suggest a limited capacity of insects in the Earth's most biodiverse regions to buffer future warming.

Monitoring insect populations has become an urgent priority given the ongoing biodiversity crisis, and the resulting changes to ecosystem services. However, the available data on insect population trends are severely limited in terms of taxonomic, spatial, and temporal resolution, due to the time-consuming nature of insect collection and identification. The goal of LEPMON (LEPidoptera MONitoring) is to develop a powerful, stable and scalable automated nocturnal insect recording system for long-term monitoring and answering ecological questions. The project runs from December 2024 to November 2027. We provide an overview of the entire project, summarizing the original research proposal and current developments as of August 2026. LEPMON uses time-lapse digital photography of nocturnal insects attracted to a white screen using UV light (LepiLED) with a high resolution of 16 px/mm. Artificial intelligence (AI) is applied for automated processing of the collected images. The recording system comprises two different models of Automated Recorders for Nocturnal Insects (ARNIs). The ARNI-Pro is the high-end model with the highest image quality and durable components, designed for professional users. ARNI-CS is the more affordable and portable alternative with slightly reduced image quality, built largely using 3D-printed components. As of August 2026, 67 ARNI-Pros and 34 ARNI-CS's have been installed in the field. The ARNI-Pro models were set up (1) along eight urbanization gradients to test the system’s ability to detect community changes, and (2) in a variety of natural habitats across Germany to capture as many species as possible, ranging from raised bogs in the north to alpine habitats in the south. We also determine technical limits at extreme locations such as forest canopies and tropical environments and shortly assess the project’s risks and exploitation perspectives. The ARNI-CS models further support the recording of the community composition of nocturnal insects across various habitats in a citizen science context. The images and data generated by the ARNIs are uploaded to a scalable data management platform (LAUP = LEPMON Annotation and Upload Portal). LAUP processes the images and uses AI to enable large-scale object detection and species identification. As accurate AI models require extensive species-labelled training data, large numbers of manually identified images are needed. To obtain these identifications, we involve both taxonomic experts and citizen scientists. We aim to build international collaborations and share knowledge between countries, extending moth monitoring beyond Germany to strengthen LEPMON as a long-term biodiversity monitoring network.

In the light of a warming climate, understanding factors shaping tropical biodiversity becomes increasingly urgent. Temperature can enhance diversity by increasing diversification and ecological rates but may also restrict diversity when exceeding organisms' thermal limits. Changes in diversity can subsequently influence community specialization patterns. We tested the influence of temperature, moisture and food availability on the diversity of dung beetles (Scarabaeinae), food specialization and the mechanism of thermal limits along an Andean-Amazonian gradient from 250 to 3500 metres above sea level (m.a.s.l.). Beetles were sampled with dung, carrion and fruit-baited pitfall traps to test specialization; mammal activity was recorded as a proxy for food availability. Diversity showed no significant relationship with mammal biomass but increased with higher temperatures to 500 m.a.s.l., with a sharp drop at lower elevations. Lowland diversity was restricted by upper thermal limits, with small or negative thermal safety margins. Resource specialization increased towards the lowlands, potentially a product of greater diversity. Our findings highlight temperature as a primary driver of diversity, with upper thermal limits acting as a key constraint in lowland areas. Our data suggest that additional warming of the Amazonian lowlands may have detrimental consequences for dung beetles and their ecosystem functions, even in intact rainforests.

Animals are not known to biosynthesize floral chemical signals to manipulate pollinators, although such mimicry could profoundly shape plant-pollinator interactions. Larvae of the poisonous European blister beetle Meloe proscarabaeus parasitize multiple solitary bee species, yet the mechanism enabling host attraction has remained unresolved. Here we show that these larvae lure bees by emitting a bouquet of volatile compounds that closely resembles floral scent. Chemical analyses reveal a complex blend of monoterpenoids derived from (S)-linalool, a ubiquitous floral volatile. Behavioral assays demonstrate that these compounds function as floral-scent mimics, eliciting attraction in bees and acting as allomones (i.e., interspecific chemical signals that benefit the emitter while disadvantaging the receiver). Transcriptomic and functional analyses identify cytochrome P450 enzymes that oxidize (S)-linalool, suggesting that larvae biosynthesize these plant-like volatiles de novo. Together, these findings broaden the scope of interkingdom chemical mimicry and uncover a striking form of sensory deception in which an insect chemically assumes the signal identity of a flower, revealing that animals can evolve biosynthetic pathways to exploit plant-pollinator communication.

We present LEPY, a free and openly available Python-based pipeline for the automated extraction and analysis of morphological and colour traits, from mounted specimens of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). The pipeline uses an automatically detected scale bar for accurate morphological measurements, together with image segmentation that separates the specimen from the background, with users able to pre-select from a set of segmentation models. We designed LEPY to be user-friendly and reproducible, ensuring efficient and consistent analysis of large image datasets. The pipeline also supports the integration of ultraviolet (UV) photographs for improved colour analysis, an innovative feature rarely available in existing trait-analysis tools.LEPY computes morphological traits such as body length, forewing length, and specimen area. It also extracts colour traits including hue, saturation, intensity from the red, green, and blue (RGB) channels, as well as brightness, contrast, chromaticity, and luminance from both RBG and UV channels. The pipeline uses the data to calculate colour diversity with the Shannon index, exports results in a structured, machine-readable format, and it also generates visual summaries of each image pair.We tested LEPY on different moth groups spanning a wide range of body sizes and colouration patterns. As an ecological case study, we applied the pipeline to complete datasets of Sphingidae and Saturniidae collected along an elevational gradient in the Peruvian Andes. The resulting trait data revealed taxon-dependent morphological and colour responses to elevation, thereby demonstrating LEPY's utility for analysing large-scale trait datasets.LEPY provides a robust and fully automated approach for the analysis of morphological and colour traits in Lepidoptera, supporting ecological and evolutionary research. Its scalability and ability to generate standardised, high-resolution trait datasets make it a valuable tool for biodiversity monitoring, macroecological research, and the development of global trait databases.

Tropical forests are highly threatened habitats with the capacity to recover after disturbance. We studied the recovery of phylogenetic diversity (PD) and phylogenetic community structure in plants and animals along a chronosequence of regeneration. We tested expected phylogenetic patterns through succession, including a slower recovery of PD compared with species richness (SR), increasing phylogenetic overdispersion with regeneration time, and the role of environmental filtering and landscape in promoting phylogenetic clustering and overdispersion. PD recovery occurred after SR for only four out of eight groups. Frugivorous and invertivorous birds showed increasing phylogenetic overdispersion during succession, while frogs, bees and trees instead showed a tendency for increasing phylogenetic clustering. Phylogenetic clustering was mainly related to environmental factors during early and late regeneration. Phylogenetic overdispersion during late regeneration was driven by the distance to old-growth forests only in frugivorous birds. Our results show the complex nature of succession in tropical forests, reflecting idiosyncratic patterns of PD and phylogenetic community structure recovery after disturbance for plants and animals. However, they also show that PD can recover relatively rapidly under natural regeneration, suggesting that the studied communities are resilient to disturbance from an evolutionary perspective.

The systematic placement of the enigmatic South African moth Apoprogones hesperistis Hampson, which superficially resembles hesperiid skippers and sematurid moths, has long been controversial. Its rarity has hindered detailed morphological study, and the absence of fresh material has precluded molecular analyses. We investigated its phylogenetic position using non-destructive DNA extraction from the holotype collected in 1902, followed by museomic sequencing, and complemented these data with non-destructive micro-CT-based morphological examination. In a first analysis based on a Macroheterocera dataset including mitogenomes of 114 taxa, A. hesperistis was placed within Geometroidea as sister to an undescribed lineage from southern South America. A second, Geometroidea-focused phylogenomic analysis of 45 taxa confirmed this placement, recovering A. hesperistis within the lineage of geometroid families lacking tympanic hearing organs, again as sister to the same undescribed South American lineage. Together, these taxa formed a clade positioned between the Southeast Asian families Pseudobistonidae and Epicopeiidae. We describe a new genus, Ona Sihvonen, Hausmann & Brehm gen. n., with Ona australis Sihvonen, Hausmann & Brehm sp. n. from Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, as type species. Apoprogones and Ona are classified in the revived family Apoprogonidae, each representing a monotypic subfamily-Apoprogoninae and Onainae-to reflect their distinctiveness. We further show that Geometroidea comprises both tympanic and non-tympanic lineages, with 99.4% of described species possessing hearing organs. We hypothesize that the abdominal hearing organ, particularly the geometrid-specific structure called ansa, may represent a key innovation promoting diversification of the lineage post Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) boundary ca 66 Mya.

Oenochrominae sensu stricto (s. s.) are a group of robust-bodied geometrid moths found in the Australasian region. However, over the years, there has been a tendency to relegate genera that are difficult to classify under other subfamilies of Geometridae into a taxonomic "trash bin," referred to as Oenochrominae sensu lato (s. l.). Here, we examine this assemblage of moths, focusing on Australasian genera, with the aim of making the classification of Oencohrominae s. s. consistent with phylogeny. We do this by reconstructing a molecular phylogeny that includes 24 of 40 genera and 49 of 183 species traditionally assigned to Oenochrominae s. l. These are analyzed using a dataset of 1,398 taxa from all geometrid subfamilies worldwide, with up to 11 gene markers per terminal taxon. Using a maximum likelihood approach, we show that some Oenochrominae s. l. taxa belong to other subfamilies (Desmobathrinae, Ennominae), or are incertae sedis, and adjust classification so that Oenochrominae s. s. represents a monophyletic lineage. We also examine the morphology of the reclassified taxa, and discuss and illustrate their characters for taxonomic clarity. Our results also show that several genera within Oenochrominae s. s. are polyphyletic, highlighting the need for a modern revision.

We present a straightforward, application-driven telecentric stereo 3D-measurement system for high-precision measurements, designed for applications ranging from industrial quality control to biological research including scanning of Lepidoptera moths. Utilizing a dual-camera setup with telecentric lenses and structured illumination, our system achieves lateral resolution of 8.0 μm and axial resolution of 4.46 μm in a measurement volume of 11 mm × 11 mm × 6 mm . We address challenges typically encountered when using standard libraries like OpenCV, e.g. in extrinsic parameter estimation using a dedicated calibration method that corrects for a potential model mismatch due to telecentricity. Our approach adapts existing methods, such as telecentric stereo vision and structured illumination, into an optimized, user-friendly system tailored for life science research, enabling detailed 3D reconstructions of scattering objects, such as small moths, with isotropic micrometer accuracy. This work presents an application-driven approach for biological 3D metrology by integrating existing technologies (telecentric stereo vision, structured illumination) into a specialized imaging platform suitable for non-invasive morphological studies. Unlike conventional CT or microscopic approaches, our method provides a balance of precision, scalability, and practical usability for non-expert users with the aim to study developmental changes in species under varying environmental conditions, while also methodically bridging the gap between macroscopic and microscopic resolution in biological imaging. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), IGF 22462 BR German ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), 13N16890

Bees play important roles in shaping ecosystems through processes like pollination. However, their populations are in decline due to habitat degradation and unsustainable agriculture. This study assesses the effectiveness of color traps for bee monitoring in two distinct yet geographically close habitats in "Jenaer Forst" natural reserve in Germany. Over a 23-week period in spring and summer 2023, we tested six trap colors (blue, yellow, white, violet, blue-yellow, and violet-white) and analyzed their performance in terms of bee abundance, diversity, and species composition. Our results indicate that violet and blue-yellow traps captured the highest bee abundance and species richness. While overall bee community composition did not differ significantly between trap colors, specific species showed color preferences. The blue-yellow trap emerged as a versatile option, potentially capturing a diverse range of species through its contrasting colors. Moreover, despite the close proximity of the two habitats, differences in community composition suggest that habitat-specific factors influence bee color preferences. Minor habitat changes significantly impacted trap effectiveness, emphasizing the importance of tailored trap designs. These findings highlight the importance of considering both color contrast and habitat context when designing bee monitoring strategies and understanding bee foraging behavior. This study contributes valuable insights to improve trap designs and enhance our understanding of the interactions between bees and their environments.

Understanding how host-microbiome interactions respond to abiotic and biotic factors is key to elucidating the mechanisms influencing ecological communities under current climate change scenarios. Despite increasing evidence that gut microbial communities associated with bees influence their health and fitness, including key roles in nutrient assimilation, toxin removal, defense against pathogens, and immune responses, the distribution of gut microbial communities and the dynamics of these associations along environmental gradients remain poorly understood. In this study, we assessed how environmental changes with elevation and host taxonomic identity influence the bacterial gut microbiome of wild bees collected along a 3,600 m elevation gradient in the Peruvian Andes. We applied DNA metabarcoding on the 16S rRNA region of gut samples from five bee tribes: Apini (honey bees), Bombini (bumble bees), Meliponini (stingless bees), Euglossini (orchid bees), and Halictini (sweat bees). Our findings indicate a general decrease in bacterial diversity and a high turnover of microbial taxa along the elevation gradient, with notable differences among host tribes. Host taxonomic identity was a strong predictor of gut microbial community composition, despite a high turnover of microbial and host taxa along the gradient. Within tribes, the turnover of microbial compositions was mainly explained by environmental changes with elevation in bumble and stingless bees. The observed variations in gut microbial diversity and composition at different elevations and different host taxa suggest that both factors significantly impact the gut microbiomes. As climate change continues to influence environmental conditions in the Andean-Amazonian forests it is crucial to consider how these changes may affect host-microbiome relationships. This highlights the necessity of understanding both abiotic and biotic factors in the context of climate change.

Disjunct distribution patterns have long intrigued biogeographers, sparking ongoing debates about the mechanisms driving the current distribution of biodiversity. Among the most discussed patterns are long-distance dispersal and vicariance. While these patterns have been extensively studied in plants, marine taxa, mammals, and some invertebrates, they remain less explored in groups like moths. In this study, we use the Epidesmiinae + Oenochrominae + Desmobathrinae complex-three closely related subfamilies within the Geometridae family-as a model to examine disjunct distribution patterns in Australasian moths. Epidesmiinae + Oenochrominae moths are primarily distributed within the Australasian region, with some taxa being endemic to New Zealand. In contrast, their sister group, Desmobathrinae, exhibits a trans-continental and mainly pantropical distribution. The biogeography and evolution of these subfamilies, which currently have different distribution areas, have not been analysed in an evolutionary context before. To investigate this, we inferred phylogenetic trees using a Maximum-Likelihood approach and used the topology to estimate time-calibrated trees and reconstruct ancestral biogeographical areas using a Bayesian method. Additionally, we explored the diversification rates of these lineages. Our results suggest that the ancestor of the three subfamilies most likely originated in Australasia during the Eocene (∼58 Ma). Bayesian biogeographical analyses suggested dispersal events of the Desmobathrinae into the Indo-Malayan region and other areas, with an important jump to the Neotropics, while Epidesmiinae and Oenochrominae dispersed mainly within Australasia. Diversification analysis revealed no significant shifts in diversification rates, with the phylogeny showing a pattern of declining speciation rates over time. Our study exemplifies how phylogenetics in combination with biogeographical reconstruction uncovers macroevolutionary patterns in moths.

Tropical forests are disappearing, but we have a limited understanding of the factors driving species coexistence in mammal communities of old-growth forest ecosystems. The total energy that is bound by plants is assumed to be a key factor determining mammalian species richness, but accurately measuring energy flows in complex ecosystems is difficult, and most studies therefore rely on remote-sensing-based surrogates of net primary productivity (NPP). We monitored mammal species richness across three seasons using camera traps on 26 study plots along a forested, elevational gradient from 245 to 3588 m above sea level in southeastern Peru for which a unique dataset on field-measured NPP exists. Using linear-regression models and path analysis, we disentangled the effects of climate and NPP on the diversity of mammals, testing the predictions of the more-individuals hypothesis, stating that energy availability drives the number of individuals and, thus, the number of coexisting species. We compared detailed field measurements of NPP with remote-sensing products (MODIS NPP and MODIS NDVI). Mammal species richness, abundance, and biomass decreased in a negative exponential pattern with elevation. Field-measured data on NPP, which was largely driven by temperature, was a strong predictor of both abundance and species richness, while remotely sensed proxies for NPP failed to accurately predict mammal diversity. Our study underpins the importance of field-based ecosystem data and emphasizes the role of high primary productivity for maintaining diverse mammal communities, which is a particularly pressing issue in light of recent anthropogenic impacts on the Amazonian forest system.