Lepidoptera Phylogenomics: Devonian–Cenozoic Time-Tree (363.76 Ma), Angiosperm-Coupled Ditrysian Radiation, and COX1 Barcode Saturation Horizon
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Lepidoptera Phylogenomics: Devonian–Cenozoic Time-Tree (363.76 Ma), Angiosperm-Coupled Ditrysian Radiation, and COX1 Barcode Saturation Horizon Understanding how butterflies and moths (order Lepidoptera) diversified alongside flowering plants while establishing the evolutionary boundary where single-locus DNA barcoding loses phylogenetic resolution requires evaluating multi-locus mitogenomic and nuclear datasets under rigorous compositional controls. Using the Rust-Native Inference Engine (RuNIE) and external reference binaries across a 92-specimen Amphiesmenoptera cohort aligned across 100,109 homologous columns in Native Rust (33,419 columns in external progressive alignment), we reconstruct the Late Devonian to Cenozoic evolutionary timescale of Lepidoptera and benchmark the diagnostic horizon of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COX1). Relaxed molecular-clock dating places the crown divergence of Ditrysia in the Middle Jurassic (165.11 Ma) and the rapid radiation of butterflies (Papilionoidea) in the Early Cretaceous (113.62 Ma), while demonstrating that single-locus COX1 barcoding maintains 100.0% species-partitioning accuracy across recent divergence strata (<= 36.5 Ma) before succumbing to third-codon-position AT mutational saturation across deeper Mesozoic nodes. Canonical Preprint URL: https://crvscience.com/labs/preprints/lepidoptera-ditrysia-timetree-cox1-gap-preprint Master (Concept) Zenodo DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23994485 Open-Source Software Repository (GNU GPL-3.0): https://github.com/bpwhite/crvscience-labs
Author: White, Bryan P.
Institution: CRV (Netherlands)
Language: English
Subfield: Insect Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225411915