Phenotypic plasticity in tropical butterflies is linked to climatic seasonality on a macroevolutionary scale

Phenotypic plasticity can be adaptive in fluctuating environments by providing rapid environment-phenotype matching and this applies particularly in seasonal environments. African Bicyclus butterflies have repeatedly colonized seasonal savannahs from ancestral forests around the Late Miocene and many species now exhibit seasonal polyphenism. On a macroevolutionary scale, it can be expected that savannah species will exhibit higher plasticity due to them experiencing stronger environmental seasonality than forest species. We quantified seasonality using environmental niche modelling, and surveyed the degree of plasticity in a key wing pattern element (eyespot size) using museum specimens. We show that species occurring in highly seasonal environments display strong plasticity, while species in less seasonal or aseasonal environments exhibit surprisingly variable degrees of plasticity, including strong to no plasticity. Furthermore, eyespot size plasticity has a moderate phylogenetic sign..., The dataset has two components: (1) phenotypic data- the data was collected by measuring the eyespot size and wing length (which was then used to calculate relative eyespot size) from the photographed museum specimens of African Bicyclus butterflies. (2) distribution data- this is the distribution/location data for the African Bicyclus butterflies collated from museum records and citizen science online platforms. All the data (in .csv and .xlsx) has been processed in R statistical software, except the environmental niche modelling which was carried out using the Maxent software., , **README: Phenotypic plasticity in tropical butterflies is linked to climatic seasonality on a macroevolutionary scale** This repository contains all the data and R scripts used to perform the analyses. The files are grouped (as two folders) according to the type of data and analyses. Details are as follows: ***Environmental_niche_modelling folder*** **Species location data** Bicyclus_all_non_duplicated_presence_points.csv - raw data containing lat-long records for Bicyclus species. This data is the finalised version after doing all the checks for duplicate coordinates and other obvious errors (see Methods for details). Bicyclus_rarefied_for_maxent_input.csv - raw data containing lat-long records for Bicyclus species after performing thinning (see ‘plotting_location_points_and_rarefaction.Rmd’ script). The rarefaction level used for each species is provided in Table S1. Koppen_clipping_mask.asc - Koppen climate mask used for clipping Bioclim rasters, for example, to remove dese...表型可塑性（phenotypic plasticity）可通过快速实现环境与表型的匹配，在波动环境中发挥适应性作用，这一效应在季节性环境中尤为显著。非洲眼蝶属（Bicyclus）蝴蝶从中新世晚期的祖先森林类群多次定殖季节性稀树草原，如今多数物种已演化出季节多型性（seasonal polyphenism）。 从宏观进化尺度来看，由于稀树草原物种所经历的环境季节性强于森林物种，推测前者的表型可塑性水平更高。本研究通过生态位建模（environmental niche modelling）量化环境季节性，并利用博物馆馆藏标本检测了蝴蝶翅纹关键特征——眼斑大小（eyespot size）的可塑性程度。研究结果显示，栖息于强季节性环境中的物种表现出显著的表型可塑性，而栖息于弱季节性或非季节性环境中的物种其可塑性水平呈现出出人意料的异质性，涵盖从强可塑性到完全无可塑性的各类情况。此外，眼斑大小可塑性具有中等程度的系统发育信号…… 本数据集包含两部分：（1）表型数据：通过测量非洲眼蝶属馆藏标本的实拍照片，获取其眼斑大小与翅长数据，并以此计算相对眼斑大小；（2）分布数据：整合自博物馆馆藏记录与公民科学（citizen science）在线平台的非洲眼蝶属物种分布/位置数据。所有.csv与.xlsx格式的数据均已通过R统计软件完成处理，仅生态位建模环节使用Maxent软件完成。 **README：热带蝴蝶的表型可塑性与宏观进化尺度下的气候季节性相关** 本仓库包含本研究分析所用的全部数据与R脚本，根据数据与分析类型分为两个文件夹，详情如下： ***环境生态位建模文件夹*** **物种位置数据** Bicyclus_all_non_duplicated_presence_points.csv：包含眼蝶属物种经纬度记录的原始数据，该版本已完成所有重复坐标与其他明显错误的校验（详见研究方法部分）。 Bicyclus_rarefied_for_maxent_input.csv：经稀疏化处理后的眼蝶属物种经纬度记录原始数据（稀疏化流程详见"plotting_location_points_and_rarefaction.Rmd"脚本）。各物种所采用的稀疏化水平详见附表S1。 Koppen_clipping_mask.asc：用于裁剪Bioclim气候栅格的柯本气候掩码，例如用于移除……