Lepidoptera Webinars “Lepinars”
There will be Lepidoptera seminars every other Monday on Zoom. Please subscribe here, if you would like to join the email list. If you would like to give a talk or nominate a speaker, contact Joana Meier (joana.meier@sanger.ac.uk), Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich (gmontejokovacevich@gmail.com), Nicol Rueda (nicol.rueda@sanger.ac.uk), Karin Näsvall (kn9@sanger.ac.uk) or Fernando Seixas (fs20@sanger.ac.uk). Self-nominations are also very welcome.
The talks start at 4 pm UK time.
Schedule
Upcoming Lepinars of 2026
| 14 September 2026 | Paula Escuer | University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland |
| 5 October 2026 | Sushant Potdar | Cornell University, USA |
| 19 October 2026 | Shuzhe (Jerry) Guan | Harvard University, USA |
| 2 November 2026 | Jenny Stewart | Queen Mary University of London, UK |
| 16 November 2026 | Joe Hanly | George Washington U, USA & STRI |
| 30 November 2026 | Saad Arif | Oxford Brookes University, UK |
| 14 December 2026 | Caroline Bacquet | Ikiam University, Ecuador |
Previous Lepinars
Lepinars of 2026
19 January 2026 Federica Bertocchini (Plasticentropy, Madrid, Spain)
From Insects to Enzymes: Exploring Galleria mellonella as a Source of Plastic-Degrading Biocatalysts
2 February 2026 Luca Livraghi (George Washington University, USA)
Parallel evolution of lepidopteran wing color patterns through the redeployment of hotspot genes
16 February 2026 Riccardo Poloni (Collège de France and National Museum of Natural History, France)
Speciation in the amazon: divergence in sympatry of two Morpho butterflies
2 March 2026 Carol Boggs (University of South Carolina, USA & Rocky Mountain Biological Lab)
Resource allocation, wing coloration and mate attraction
16 March 2026 Alena Sucháčková (Biology Centre CAS, Czechia)
Biogeography of Palearctic forest butterflies
30 March 2026 Camille Cornet (University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland)
Comparative Genomics to Unravel Chromosomal (In)Stability in Butterflies
13 April 2026 Aurora García-Berro (Botanical Institute of Barcelona, Spain)
Genomics of migratory behaviour in butterflies
27 April 2026 Tianzhu Xiong (Cornell University, USA)
A transposon origin of large tandem repeats in the butterfly Papilio bianor
11 May 2026 Kathy Darragh (Indiana Blomington, USA)
Ancient and repeated origins of novel biosynthetic pathways in butterflies
22 June 2026 Pedro Ribeiro (Czech Academy of Sciences, Biology Centre, Czechia)
Micro- and macro-evolutionary aspects of the evolutionary relationship of butterflies (Hesperiidae) and Wolbachia, and repeat landscape evolution in bagworm moths (Psychidae).
Lepinars of 2025
20 January 2025 Marcus Hicks (Queen Mary University, London, UK)
Shifts in Reproductive Dynamics in a Seasonal Tropical Environment
03 February 2025 María F Checa (Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador)
Butterfly responses to climate variability: insights from the Amazon and Western Ecuador
17 February 2025 Vlad Dinca (“Grigore Antipa” National Museum of Natural History, Bucharest, Romania)
Cryptic diversity and the emergence of novel research models: the story of Leptidea Wood White butterflies
03 March 2025 Paul Doniol-Valcroze (CEFE, Montpellier, France)
Hybrid speciation and adaptation in Alpine butterflies (Coenonympha)
17 March 2025 Juanita Gutiérrez (Universidad del Rosario/LMU Munich, Germany)
Neuro-sensory adaptation and its association to ecological divergence and speciation in Heliconius butterflies
31 March 2025 Brooke Zanco (University College London, UK)
Rapid Adaptation and Range Expansion in the UK Brown Argus Butterfly: Implications for Population Persistence
14 April 2025 Eva van der Heijden (Sanger Institute / University of Cambridge, UK)
Rapid diversification and wing colour pattern evolution in tropical butterflies
28 April 2025 Elisa Mogollón (LMU Munich, Germany)
Intraspecific divergence of eye morphology and its genetic basis across a Heliconius butterfly hybrid zone
12 May 2025 Zachary Nolen (Biodiversity Division, Department of Biology, Lund University, Sweden)
Landscape driven isolation and inbreeding in specialist grassland butterflies
23 June 2025 Ritabrata Chowdhury (University of Cambridge, UK)
A co-evolutionary “Game of Thorns”: Plant physical defences and insect counter-adaptations
1 September 2025: David Heckel, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany
Using genetic variation to dissect phenotypic variation in moth sex pheromones: female production and male behavioral response
15 September 2025: Lawrence Gilbert, University of Texas at Austin, USA
The window-shutter hypothesis for novel pattern generation in Heliconius hybrid zones: A look back 45 years and forward with new opportunities to hand off.
29 September 2025: José Borrero, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
Ecological divergence and post-eclosion brain development shape visual performance in Heliconius butterflies
27 October 2025: Irena Klečková (Czech Academy of Sciences, Biology Centre, Czechia)
Genomics and the future of butterfly conservation
3 November 2025: Charlotte Wright and Joana Meier, Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK
Introducing Project Psyche (reference genomes of all Lepidoptera in Europe) and kickstarting analysis groups of the first 1000 genomes
10 November 2025: Thomas Decroly, University of Edinburgh, UK
What drives sex chromosome degeneration? Can recombination halt it?
24 November 2025: Edward Page, University of York, UK
Convergent evolution of behaviour, colour pattern and inversion-based supergenes in mimetic Lepidoptera
8 December 2025: Noé Dogbo, Université de Tours, France
Investigating the invasion of a novel transposable element in European Lepidoptera genomes
Lepinars of 2024
22 January 2024: David Rivas (University of Bristol, UK)
Parallel adaptations associated with independent altitude shifts in Heliconius butterflies
5 February 2024: Jérémy Gauthier (Cantonal Museum of Natural Sciences, Lausanne, Switzerland)
Assessing butterfly decline over a century using Museomics
19 February 2024: Sridhar Halali (Lund University, Sweden)
Adaptations promoting niche shifts in butterflies
4 March 2024: Peter Mulhair (University of Oxford, UK)
Genome-scale approaches in understanding Lepidoptera diversity
18 March 2024: Ki-woong Nam (INRAE & University of Montpellier, France)
Revealing the Global Spread: Understanding the Evolutionary Process of the Fall Armyworm Invasion
15 April 2024: Marianne Espeland (Museum König Bonn, Germany)
Target capture and whole genome sequencing for Lepidoptera phylogenomics: Museum specimens and beyond
29 April 2024: Fernando Seixas (Harvard University, USA)
Homoploid hybrid speciation in Heliconius: the case of H. elevatus
13 May 2024: Jesper Boman (Uppsala University, Sweden)
What can we learn about chromosomal speciation in butterflies from studying Leptidea?
10 June 2024: Vicky Lloyd (University of Sheffield, UK)
The evolution and development of structural colour in Heliconius butterflies
24 June 2024: Yacine Ben Chehida (University of Sheffield, UK)
Convergent evolution in colour patterns in ithomiini and Chetone
30 September 2024: Benito Wainwright (University of St Andrews, UK)
Patterns of convergent sensory adaptation in tropical mimetic butterflies
14 October 2024: Sebastián Mena (Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador)
Vertical stratification structures horizontal diversity in neotropical butterflies
28 October 2024: Leo Tomás Camino (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama)
Novel Findings in the Wing Patterning Development of Heliconius Butterflies
11 November 2024: Henry North (University of Cambridge, UK)
Adaptation and hybridisation in Helicoverpa crop pests
25 November 2024: Denise Dalbosco (STRI, Panama and University of Bristol, UK)
Visual basis of ecological specialization: Polarized light in Heliconius butterflies
9 December 2024: Violaine Llaurens (Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche en Biologie, France)
What are the factors favouring the co-existence of closely-related Morpho species in sympatry?
Lepinars of 2023
23 January 2023: Riccardo Papa (University of Puerto Rico)
Do not believe everything you see
6 February 2023: Nicol Rueda (Universidad del Rosario, Colombia)
Sex chromosome – autosome fusions in Heliconius butterflies
20 February 2023: Anna Orteu (University of Cambridge, UK)
Structural variation and gene reuse are crucial in the evolution of adaptive colouration in Hypolimnas butterflies and the wood tiger moth, Arctia plantaginis
6 March 2023: Vicencio Oostra (Queen Mary University London, UK)
Mechanisms and evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity
20 March 2023: Nipam Patel (Marine Biological Laboratory, University of Chicago, USA)
Clonal analysis uncovers early patterning steps in Lepidopteran wing development
3 April 2023: Noah Whiteman (U Berkeley, USA)
Cascading effects of acquired chemical defenses in insects: a tale of two toxins
17 April 2023: Rachel Steward (Lund University, Sweden)
Evolutionary patterns and consequences of alternative splicing in phenotypically plastic traits
22 May 2023: Luca Livraghi (George Washington University, USA)
The cortex locus: what is driving scale fate in butterflies?
12 June 2023: Karin Näsvall (Uppsala Universitet, Sweden & Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK)
The effect of chromosomal rearrangements on the recombination landscape in Leptidea sinapis
16 October 2023: Érika de Castro (University of Cambridge, UK)
The relationships between butterflies and their food plants: from coevolutionary enemies to best friends.
02 October 2023: Chiara Bortoluzzi (Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK)
Comparative genomics as a tool in the conservation efforts of moths and butterflies
30 October 2023: Arjen van’t Hof (Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences)
A novel sex determination mechanism in a satyrid butterfly
13 November 2023: Megan Fritz (University of Maryland, USA)
Genome evolution in North American lepidopteran species in response to modern agricultural practices
27 November 2023: Philip Süess (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Unravelling the regulatory mechanisms of pupal diapause termination in Pieris napi
11 December 2023: Heloise Muller (Institut Curie Paris, France)
Close encounters of the third kind of compartment in the holocentric silkworm Bombyx more
Lepinars of 2022
10 January 2022: Niklas Wahlberg (Lund University, Sweden)
Lepidoptera phylogenomics and the uses of museomics
24 January 2022: Wendy Valencia-Montoya (Harvard University, USA)
Evolutionary trade-offs between male secondary sexual traits revealed by a phylogeny of the hyperdiverse tribe Eumaeini (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae)
7 February 2022: Rishi De-Kayne (University of Edinburgh, UK)
The evolution of complex wing-pattern supergenes in Danaus butterflies
21 February 2022: Johanna Mappes (U Helsinki, Finland)
The ecology of complex polymorphism
7 March 2022: Swanne P Gordon (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)
Examining the maintenance of polymorphism in aposematism: lessons from a ‘non-model’ model system
21 March 2022: Jeremy Andersen (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)
Hybridization to extinction revisited: gene flow across species boundaries as biotic resistance
4 April 2022: Astrid Groot (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)
The genetic basis and evolutionary significance of sex pheromone variation in moths
02 May 2022: Zachariah Gompert (Utah State University, USA)
Coupling and introgression in a butterfly hybrid zone
16 May 2022: Martik Chatterjee (Cornell University, USA)
Investigating the role of bric-a-brac in regulating wing scale morphology and color patterning across Lepidoptera
13 June 2022: Anyi Mazo-Vargas (George Washington University, USA)
The cis-regulatory architecture of butterfly’s wing pattern groundplan
5 September 2022: Bruna Cama (U York, UK)
Pheromones as reproductive barriers in the Heliconiini radiation
19 September 2022: James R Walters (U Kansas, USA)
The Danaus W chromosome & Bombyx testes single-cell transcriptomic
3 October 2022: Francesco Cicconardi (Bristol U, UK)
Evolutionary dynamics of genome size and content during the adaptive radiation of Heliconiini butterflies
17 October 2022: Petr Nguyen (U South Bohemia, Czech Republic)
Chromosome evolution in Lepidoptera
31 October 2022: Christine Merlin (Texas A&M University, USA)
Molecular bases of migratory physiology and behavior in monarch butterflies
14 November 2022: Christopher Lawrence (Princeton University, USA) and Reshma Ramesh Babu (Ohio State University, USA)
Making Models and Mining Mimics
28 November 2022: Alex Mackintosh (U Edinburgh, UK)
Chromosome evolution and speciation in Brenthis fritillary butterflies
12 December 2022: Pável Matos-Maraví (Czech Academy of Sciences, CZ)
Historical biogeography and macroevolution of neotropical butterflies
Lepinars of 2021
25 January 2021: Camille Le Roy (CNRS, France)
Convergent morphology and divergent phenology: unravelling the coexistence of mimetic Morpho butterfly species
8 February 2021: Paul Jay (CNRS, France)
The evolution of supergenes: insight from mimicry polymorphism in Heliconius numata
22 February 2021: Kathy Darragh (U Davis, USA)
Pheromones in Heliconius butterflies: Chemical ecology, genetics and behaviour
8 March 2021: Steven van Belleghem (U Puerto Rico)
Selection and isolation define a heterogeneous divergence landscape between hybridizing Heliconius butterflies
22 March 2021: Simon Martin (U Edinburgh, UK)
Formation, reformation and deformation of structural barriers to gene flow in Danaus butterflies
19 April 2021: Joe Hanly (George Washington U, USA)
Speciation genomics in North American Colias butterflies
10 May 2021: Stephen Montgomery (U Bristol, UK)
Mushroom body expansion in Heliconius butterflies
17 May 2021: Brian Counterman (Auburn University, USA)
Genetics of sexually dimorphic UV on Dogface wings
7 June 2021: Kay Lucek (U Basel, Switzerland)
When species meet again – secondary contact zones of Erebia butterflies
14 June 2021: Mahul Chakraborty (UC Irvine, USA)
The big and the small of it: Comparing complete, diploid assemblies of vulnerable and common butterfly species exhibiting dramatic genome size variation
28 June 2021: Yuttapong Thawornwattana (Harvard U, USA)
Full likelihood analysis of divergence and introgression in the erato-sara group of Heliconius
12 July 2021: Erica Westerman (University of Arkansas, USA)
Mechanisms underlying behavioral variation in Heliconius and Bicyclus butterflies
23 August 2021: Adriana Briscoe (UC Irvine, USA)
True UV color vision in a female Heliconius butterfly with two UV opsins
20 September 2021: Anniina Mattila (U Helsinki, Finland)
Dissecting the ecological, evolutionary, life-history and molecular influencers of cyanogenic chemical defense variation in Heliconius erato
18 October 2021: Erika Páez (CNRS, Paris, France)
Hard to catch: experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry
1 November 2021: Stefan Schulz (TU Braunschweig, Germany)
The scent chemistry of Heliconius
15 November 2021: Charlotte Wright (Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK)
The evolution of chromosome structure in Lepidoptera
13 December 2021: Nicolas Chazot (University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden)
Historical biogeography from a supertree of Nymphalidae butterflies and a macroevolutionary perspective on the evolution of mimicry in the tribe Ithomiini.
Lepinars of 2020
11 May 2020: Luca Livraghi (U Cambridge, UK)
The gene cortex controls scale colour identity in Heliconius
25 May 2020: Joe Hanly (George Washington U, USA)
Investigation of wing pattern mutants in a domesticated population of Heliconius melpomene
8 June 2020: Kelsey Byers (U Cambridge, UK)
QTL for potential wing and genital pheromone compounds show clustering across the genome
22 June 2020: Krzysztof Kozak (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama)
Population genomics of large mimetic radiations
6 July 2020: Melanie Brien (U Sheffield / U Cambridge, UK)
The genetics and evolution of structural colour in Heliconius butterflies
20 July 2020: Nate Edelman (U Harvard, USA)
The molecular basis of hybrid female sterility in Heliconius pardalinus subspecies
3 August 2020: Nicol Rueda (U del Rosario, Colombia)
Importance of environmental variables in the distribution and natural hybridization of Heliconius butterflies.
7 September 2020: Wyatt Toure (McGill U, USA / STRI, Panama)
Heliconiini butterflies can learn time-dependent reward associations
21 September 2020: Erika Pinheiro de Castro (U Cambridge, UK)
Phenotypic plasticity in chemical defence allows butterflies to diversify host use strategies
5 October 2020: Matteo Rossi (LMU, Munich, Germany)
Genetics of visual mate preference in Heliconius butterflies
19 October 2020: Gabriela Montejo-Kovacevich (U Cambridge, UK)
Local adaptation in Heliconius butterflies (beyond mimicry)
2 November 2020: Alexander Hausmann (LMU, Munich, Germany)
Heliconius mating behaviours affected by light environment during early stages of divergence
16 November 2020: Francesco Cicconardi (U Bristol, UK)
A Flock of Genomes: New and revised genomic resources for 58 species of Heliconiini
30 November 2020: Lucie Queste (U York, UK / LMU, Munich, Germany)
Flight and wing shape in the Heliconiini
14 December 2020: James Lewis (Cornell U, USA)
Adaptive diversification of red wing color patterns in Heliconius erato