Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Natural selection and genetic diversity in the butterfly Heliconius melpomene

SH Martin, M Möst, WJ Palmer, C Salazar, View ORCID ProfileWO McMillan, View ORCID ProfileFM Jiggins, CD Jiggins
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/042796
SH Martin
1Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: shm45@cam.ac.uk
M Möst
1Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
WJ Palmer
2Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EH, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
C Salazar
3Biology Program, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Universidad del Rosario, Carrera 24 No 63C-69, Bogota 111221, Colombia
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
WO McMillan
4Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution, Apartado 0843 – 03092, Balboa, Ancón, Panama
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for WO McMillan
FM Jiggins
2Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EH, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for FM Jiggins
CD Jiggins
1Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3EJ, UK
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

A combination of selective and neutral evolutionary forces shape patterns of genetic diversity in nature. Among the insects, most previous analyses of the roles of drift and selection in shaping variation across the genome have focused on the genus Drosophila. A more complete understanding of these forces will come from analysing other taxa that differ in population demography and other aspects of biology. We have analysed diversity and signatures of selection in the neotropical Heliconius butterflies using resequenced genomes from 58 wild-caught individuals of H. melpomene, and another 21 resequenced genomes representing 11 related species. By comparing intra-specific diversity and inter-specific divergence, we estimate that 31% of amino acid substitutions between Heliconius species are adaptive. Diversity at putatively neutral sites is negatively correlated with the local density of coding sites as well as non-synonymous substitutions, and positively correlated with recombination rate, indicating widespread linked selection. This process also manifests in significantly reduced diversity on longer chromosomes, consistent with lower recombination rates. Although hitchhiking around beneficial non-synonymous mutations has significantly shaped genetic variation in H. melpomene, evidence for strong selective sweeps is limited overall. We did however identify two regions where distinct haplotypes have swept in different populations, leading to increased population differentiation. On the whole, our study suggests that positive selection is less pervasive in these butterflies as compared to fruit flies; a fact that curiously results in very similar levels of neutral diversity in these very different insects.

Footnotes

  • Data Availability

    Data underlying all analyses, figures and tables are available from Data Dryad: http://datadryad.org/review?doi=doi:10.5061/dryad.g0874

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted March 08, 2016.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Natural selection and genetic diversity in the butterfly Heliconius melpomene
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Natural selection and genetic diversity in the butterfly Heliconius melpomene
SH Martin, M Möst, WJ Palmer, C Salazar, WO McMillan, FM Jiggins, CD Jiggins
bioRxiv 042796; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/042796
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Natural selection and genetic diversity in the butterfly Heliconius melpomene
SH Martin, M Möst, WJ Palmer, C Salazar, WO McMillan, FM Jiggins, CD Jiggins
bioRxiv 042796; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/042796

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Evolutionary Biology
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4105)
  • Biochemistry (8808)
  • Bioengineering (6509)
  • Bioinformatics (23446)
  • Biophysics (11784)
  • Cancer Biology (9198)
  • Cell Biology (13314)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7430)
  • Ecology (11402)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15142)
  • Genetics (10430)
  • Genomics (14036)
  • Immunology (9167)
  • Microbiology (22142)
  • Molecular Biology (8802)
  • Neuroscience (47534)
  • Paleontology (350)
  • Pathology (1427)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2489)
  • Physiology (3729)
  • Plant Biology (8076)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1437)
  • Synthetic Biology (2220)
  • Systems Biology (6036)
  • Zoology (1252)