Population genomics of parallel hybrid zones in the mimetic butterflies, H. melpomene and H. erato.

ABSTRACT: Hybrid zones can be valuable tools for studying evolution and identifying genomic regions responsible for adaptive divergence and underlying phenotypic variation. Hybrid zones between subspecies of Heliconius butterflies can be very narrow and are maintained by strong selection acting on color pattern. The comimetic species, H. erato and H. melpomene, have parallel hybrid zones in which both species undergo a change from one color pattern form to another. We use restriction-associated DNA sequencing to obtain several thousand genome-wide sequence markers and use these to analyze patterns of population divergence across two pairs of parallel hybrid zones in Peru and Ecuador. We compare two approaches for analysis of this type of data-alignment to a reference genome and de novo assembly-and

SUBMITTER: Nadeau NJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4120085 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature