Pablo D. Lavinia

1 Introduction The unprecedented population declines in global biodiversity highlight the urgent need to understand, monitor, and develop effective conservation strategies (Ceballos et al. 2015). Conservation genomics emerges as a powerful tool to address these challenges by assessing conservation status, monitoring genetic diversity, delineating conservation units within species, combating illegal wildlife trafficking, and unraveling complex conservation issues such as hybridization.

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Because the tropical regions of America harbor the highest concentration of butterfly species, its fauna has attracted considerable attention. Much less is known about the butterflies of southern South America, particularly Argentina, where over 1,200 species occur. To advance understanding of this fauna, we assembled a DNA barcode reference library for 417 butterfly species of Argentina, focusing on the Atlantic Forest, a biodiversity hotspot.