Genetic architecture and balancing selection: the life and death of differentiated variants

V Llaurens, A Whibley, M Joron - Molecular ecology, 2017 - Wiley Online Library
Balancing selection describes any form of natural selection, which results in the persistence
of multiple variants of a trait at intermediate frequencies within populations. By offering up a …

The diversification of Heliconius butterflies: what have we learned in 150 years?

RM Merrill, KK Dasmahapatra, JW Davey… - Journal of …, 2015 - academic.oup.com
Research into Heliconius butterflies has made a significant contribution to evolutionary
biology. Here, we review our understanding of the diversification of these butterflies …

Complex modular architecture around a simple toolkit of wing pattern genes

SM Van Belleghem, P Rastas, A Papanicolaou… - Nature ecology & …, 2017 - nature.com
Identifying the genomic changes that control morphological variation and understanding
how they generate diversity is a major goal of evolutionary biology. In Heliconius butterflies …

Single master regulatory gene coordinates the evolution and development of butterfly color and iridescence

L Zhang, A Mazo-Vargas… - Proceedings of the …, 2017 - National Acad Sciences
The optix gene has been implicated in butterfly wing pattern adaptation by genetic
association, map**, and expression studies. The actual developmental function of this …

Evolutionary novelty in a butterfly wing pattern through enhancer shuffling

RWR Wallbank, SW Baxter, C Pardo-Diaz, JJ Hanly… - PLoS …, 2016 - journals.plos.org
An important goal in evolutionary biology is to understand the genetic changes underlying
novel morphological structures. We investigated the origins of a complex wing pattern found …

Towards the identification of the loci of adaptive evolution

C Pardo‐Diaz, C Salazar… - Methods in Ecology and …, 2015 - Wiley Online Library
Establishing the genetic and molecular basis underlying adaptive traits is one of the major
goals of evolutionary geneticists in order to understand the connection between genotype …

Parallel evolution of ancient, pleiotropic enhancers underlies butterfly wing pattern mimicry

JJ Lewis, RC Geltman, PC Pollak… - Proceedings of the …, 2019 - National Acad Sciences
Color pattern mimicry in Heliconius butterflies is a classic case study of complex trait
adaptation via selection on a few large effect genes. Association studies have linked color …

Genetic basis of melanin pigmentation in butterfly wings

L Zhang, A Martin, MW Perry, KRL van der Burg… - Genetics, 2017 - academic.oup.com
Butterfly wing patterns are a model system for studying the evolution and development of
adaptive traits. Zhang et al. combine RNA-seq and CRISPR/Cas9... Despite the variety …

Co-option of the trichome-forming network initiated the evolution of a morphological novelty in Drosophila eugracilis

G Rice, T Gaitán-Escudero, K Charles-Obi, J Zeitlinger… - Current Biology, 2024 - cell.com
Identifying the molecular origins by which new morphological structures evolve is one of the
long-standing problems in evolutionary biology. To date, vanishingly few examples provide …

Genetic dissection of assortative mating behavior

RM Merrill, P Rastas, SH Martin, MC Melo, S Barker… - PLoS …, 2019 - journals.plos.org
The evolution of new species is made easier when traits under divergent ecological
selection are also mating cues. Such ecological mating cues are now considered more …