Geography of Life Histories in a Tropical Fauna: The Case of Indian Butterflies.

The butterfly fauna of the megadiverse Republic of India contains 1386 species. The species richness in its 36 federal states and union territories primarily reflects the peculiar geography of the Indian peninsula, which remains unexplored except for patterns influencing species richness. Here, we develop on previous findings by focusing on species identities, by exploring the impact of physical geography, climate, land covers, socioeconomic conditions of the states, patterns by life history traits and shared evolutionary history of butterflies on the presence of individual species per federal state across the Indian peninsula. Physical geography was the strongest predictor of the states' butterfly fauna compositions, followed by climate, land covers and socioeconomics. The main faunal structures separate the humid Northeast from the rest of the country; distinguish humid Western Ghats states from the rest; and group together peninsular mountains. Analysing life histories showed that butterflies of the humid northeastern and southwestern states tend to be larger and develop on woody plants or large grasses; those of arid and high-altitude states tend to be smaller and develop on small forbs; whereas those utilising broad larval host plant scopes tend to be associated with shrubs and vines and inhabit large geographic ranges. More information on Indian butterflies' life histories would likely yield more intricate insights.