Global Invasion History of the Agricultural Pest Butterfly Pieris Rapae Revealed with Genomics and Citizen Science
Sean F. Ryan, Ph.D., scientist at Exponent, and colleagues recently published the article, "Global Invasion History of the Agricultural Pest Butterfly Pieris Rapae Revealed with Genomics and Citizen Science." This article is significant because over the last few thousand years, the seemingly inconspicuous cabbage white butterfly, Pieris Rapae, has become one of the most abundant and destructive butterflies in the world. They assessed variation at thousands of genetic markers from butterflies collected across 32 counties by over 150 volunteer scientists and citizens to reconstruct the global spread of this agricultural pest.
