Dataset Information

Co-gradient variation in growth rate and development time of a broadly distributed butterfly.

ABSTRACT: Widespread species often show geographic variation in thermally-sensitive traits, providing insight into how species respond to shifts in temperature through time. Such patterns may arise from phenotypic plasticity, genetic adaptation, or their interaction. In some cases, the effects of genotype and temperature may act together to reduce, or to exacerbate, phenotypic variation in fitness-related traits across varying thermal environments. We find evidence for such interactions in life-history traits of Heteronympha merope, a butterfly distributed across a broad latitudinal gradient in south-eastern Australia. We show that body size in this butterfly is negatively related to developmental temperature in the laboratory, in accordance with the temperature-size rule, but not in the field, despite very strong temperature gradients. A common garden experiment on larval thermal responses, spanning the environmental extremes of H. merope's distribution, revealed that butterflies from low latitude (warmer climate) populations have relatively fast intrinsic growth and development rates compared to those from cooler climates. These synergistic effects of genotype and temperature across the landscape (co-gradient variation) are likely to accentuate phenotypic variation in these traits, and this interaction must be accounted for when predicting how H. merope will respond to temperature change through time. These results highlight the importance of understanding how variation in life-history traits may arise in response to environmental change. Without this knowledge, we may fail to detect whether organisms are tracking environmental change, and if they are, whether it is by plasticity, adaptation or both.

SUBMITTER: Barton M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3990641 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Co-gradient variation in growth rate and development time of a broadly distributed butterfly.

Barton Madeleine M Sunnucks Paul P Norgate Melanie M Murray Neil N Kearney Michael M

PloS one 20140417 4

Widespread species often show geographic variation in thermally-sensitive traits, providing insight into how species respond to shifts in temperature through time. Such patterns may arise from phenotypic plasticity, genetic adaptation, or their interaction. In some cases, the effects of genotype and temperature may act together to reduce, or to exacerbate, phenotypic variation in fitness-related traits across varying thermal environments. We find evidence for such interactions in life-history tr ...[more]

PMID: 24743771

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Project description:Recombination is a key molecular mechanism that has profound implications on both micro- and macroevolutionary processes. However, the determinants of recombination rate variation in holocentric organisms are poorly understood, in particular in Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies). The wood white butterfly (Leptidea sinapis) shows considerable intraspecific variation in chromosome numbers and is a suitable system for studying regional recombination rate variation and its potential molecular underpinnings. Here, we developed a large whole-genome resequencing data set from a population of wood whites to obtain high-resolution recombination maps using linkage disequilibrium information. The analyses revealed that larger chromosomes had a bimodal recombination landscape, potentially caused by interference between simultaneous chiasmata. The recombination rate was significantly lower in subtelomeric regions, with exceptions associated with segregating chromosome rearrangements, showing that fissions and fusions can have considerable effects on the recombination landscape. There was no association between the inferred recombination rate and base composition, supporting a limited influence of GC-biased gene conversion in butterflies. We found significant but variable associations between the recombination rate and the density of different classes of transposable elements, most notably a significant enrichment of short interspersed nucleotide elements in genomic regions with higher recombination rate. Finally, the analyses unveiled significant enrichment of genes involved in farnesyltranstransferase activity in recombination coldspots, potentially indicating that expression of transferases can inhibit formation of chiasmata during meiotic division. Our results provide novel information about recombination rate variation in holocentric organisms and have particular implications for forthcoming research in population genetics, molecular/genome evolution, and speciation.

Dataset Information

Co-gradient variation in growth rate and development time of a broadly distributed butterfly.

Publications

Co-gradient variation in growth rate and development time of a broadly distributed butterfly.

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