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After almost 50 years of scrutiny, the ideas that Ehrlich and Raven presented in their classical paper on the coevolution between butterflies and plants are still very much alive. Much of this interest has involved the potential for codiversification, both in how the interaction itself diversifies and how the interaction affects modes and rates of speciation. Despite high levels of conservatism and specialization, diversification of the interaction appears to be mainly a consequence of host shifts, but this somewhat paradoxical conclusion can be understood by an appreciation of the ecological as well as genetic mechanisms behind host shifts. There are several ways that the interaction can influence speciation, with or without host-plant-based divergent selection on reproductive barriers. One current debate is over the relative importance of radiations following shifts to new adaptive zones and elevated rates of speciation in groups with plastic and diverse host use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this review, I address primarily the question whether the synthetic theory of population genetics, ecology and evolution supplies a sufficient explanation of what we find. The omission of a paper from the present bibliography is not intended as a criticism; for others, see the general review of Heliconius biology (23) and the comprehensive bibliographies (22, 105). There has always been a free exchange of data and ideas among Heliconius researchers, and some important discoveries and ideas have occurred simultaneously and independently; some foundation work is in unpublished theses (3, 22, 50, 51, 76, 85, 94). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]