Comparative Transcriptomics Provides Insights into Reticulate and Adaptive Evolution of a Butterfly Radiation.

ABSTRACT: Butterfly eyes are complex organs that are composed of a diversity of proteins and they play a central role in visual signaling and ultimately, speciation, and adaptation. Here, we utilized the whole eye transcriptome to obtain a more holistic view of the evolution of the butterfly eye while accounting for speciation events that co-occur with ancient hybridization. We sequenced and assembled transcriptomes from adult female eyes of eight species representing all major clades of the Heliconius genus and an additional outgroup species, Dryas iulia. We identified 4,042 orthologous genes shared across all transcriptome data sets and constructed a transcriptome-wide phylogeny, which revealed topological discordance with the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree in the Heliconius pupal mating clade. W

SUBMITTER: Zhang W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6821300 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature