Keith Willmott
Curator of Lepidoptera
McGuire Center for Lepidoptera & Biodiversity
Florida Museum of Natural History
3215 Hull Road
Gainesville, FL 32611-2710
352-273-2012
kwillmott@flmnh.ufl.edu
I work on Neotropical butterfly systematics in the broadest sense of the word – my interests and those of my collaborators and students are in studying butterfly diversity, understanding its spatial and temporal patterns, investigating the evolution and maintenance of diversity, and applying results to biodiversity conservation. Our research includes field work throughout the Neotropics with a focus on the tropical Andes, involving rapid inventories to efficiently gather distribution data, in addition to more in-depth ecological studies at individual sites. In the lab we use morphology and molecular data to address species-level taxonomy as well as infer phylogenies, and investigate the tempo and mode of diversification.
Systematics, ecology and biogeography of the butterflies of one of the world’s three most diverse countries.
Phylogenetic analysis, taxonomic monographs and biogeography of this diverse group of lowland Neotropical forest and savannah satyrines.
Phylogenetic analysis, taxonomic monographs and field studies of a fascinating group of Neotropical butterflies.
Quantifying the strength of biotic interactions in Adelpha communities in the USA and the Neotropics.
Recent publications
2023. Willmott, K. R., Lamas, G., Hall, J. P. W., Boyer, P., Pyrcz, T., Florcyzk, K. 2023. A new species and eight new subspecies of high elevation Actinote from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru (Nymphalidae, Heliconiinae, Acraeini). Tropical Lepidoptera Research 34(1): 1-20. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10027609 (online 27 October 2023).
2023. Garzón-Orduña, I. J., Silva-Brandão, K. L., Willmott, K. R., Freitas, A. V. L., Wahlberg, N., Brower, A. V. Z. 2023. Wing pattern diversity in Eunica butterflies (Nymphalidae: Biblidinae): phylogenetic analysis reveals decoupled adaptive trends in dorsal sexual dimorphism and ventral eyespot evolution. Cladistics 2023: 1-20. DOI: 10.1111/cla.12556 (online 15 September 2023).
2023. Pyrcz, T. W., Fahråeus, C., Boyer, P., Mahecha, O., Lorenc-Brudecka, J., Zając, K. S., Willmott, K. R., Padrón, S. The sunny butterflies: new species of high montane pierids of the Catasticta poujadei group from the Peruvian Andes (Pieridae, Pierinae, Aporiina). Zootaxa 5336(4): 530-542. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5336.4.4 (online 24 August 2023).