Journal article
Butterfly genome reveals promiscuous exchange of mimicry adaptations among species
KK Dasmahapatra, JR Walters, AD Briscoe, JW Davey, A Whibley, NJ Nadeau, AV Zimin, C Salazar, LC Ferguson, SH Martin, JJ Lewis, S Adler, SJ Ahn, DA Baker, SW Baxter, NL Chamberlain, C Ritika, BA Counterman, T Dalmay, LE Gilbert Show all
Nature | NATURE PORTFOLIO | Published : 2012
DOI: 10.1038/nature11041
Open access
Abstract
The evolutionary importance of hybridization and introgression has long been debated. Hybrids are usually rare and unfit, but even infrequent hybridization can aid adaptation by transferring beneficial traits between species. Here we use genomic tools to investigate introgression in Heliconius, a rapidly radiating genus of neotropical butterflies widely used in studies of ecology, behaviour, mimicry and speciation. We sequenced the genome of Heliconius melpomene and compared it with other taxa to investigate chromosomal evolution in Lepidoptera and gene flow among multiple Heliconius species and races. Among 12, 669 predicted genes, biologically important expansions of families of chemosenso..
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Awarded by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank the governments of Colombia, Peru and Panama for permission to collect the butterflies. Sequencing was funded by contributions from consortium members. We thank M. Abanto for assistance in raising the inbred line. Individual laboratories were funded by the Leverhulme Trust (C.D.J.), the John Fell Fund and Christ Church College, Oxford (L. C. F.), The Royal Society (M.J., C.D.J.), the NSF (W.O.M., M. R. K., R. D. R., S. M., A. D. B.), the NIH (M. R. K., S. L. S., J.A.Y.), the CNRS (M.J.), the ERC (M.J., P. W. H. H.), the Banco de la Republica and COLCIENCAS (M. L.) and the BBSRC (J.M., C.D.J., M.L.B. and R.H.f.-C.).