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Structural color in Junonia butterflies evolves by tuning scale lamina thickness.

ABSTRACT: In diverse organisms, nanostructures that coherently scatter light create structural color, but how such structures are built remains mysterious. We investigate the evolution and genetic regulation of butterfly scale laminae, which are simple photonic nanostructures. In a lineage of buckeye butterflies artificially selected for blue wing color, we found that thickened laminae caused a color shift from brown to blue. Deletion of the optix patterning gene also altered color via lamina thickening, revealing shared regulation of pigments and lamina thickness. Finally, we show how lamina thickness variation contributes to the color diversity that distinguishes sexes and species throughout the genus Junonia. Thus, quantitatively tuning one dimension of scale architecture facilitates both the microevolution and macroevolution of a broad spectrum of hues. Because the lamina is an intrinsic component of typical butterfly scales, our findings suggest that tuning lamina thickness is an available mechanism to create structural color across the Lepidoptera.

SUBMITTER: Thayer RC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7138606 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The evolution of red color vision is linked to coordinated rhodopsin tuning in lycaenid butterflies.

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| S-EPMC8017955 | biostudies-literature

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A single master regulatory gene optix underlies both color and iridescence in butterflies

Project description:It is debated to what extent individual regulatory genes might underlie non-gradualistic evolution of complex morphological traits. We have shown that a single regulatory gene, optix, is required for development of all color and iridescence in nymphalid butterfly wings by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing. To investigate how wing features are controlled by optix, we used mRNA-seq to compare transcript abundance in wild type and optix knockout wings of V. cardui and J. coenia. We generated an average of 269 million reads 36 bp paired-end Nexseq 500 reads from 16 libraries and identified numerous candidate genes including known genes involved in the insect melanin and ommochrome biosynthetic pathways and suspected components potential involved in scale structure.

2018-01-15 | GSE98678 | GEO

Achieving flexible large-scale reactivity tuning by controlling the phase, thickness and support of two-dimensional ZnO.

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Circumpapillary retinal nerve fiber layer thickness, anterior lamina cribrosa depth, and lamina cribrosa thickness in neovascular glaucoma secondary to proliferative diabetic retinopathy: a cross-sectional study.

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| S-EPMC5407001 | biostudies-literature

The genetic basis of structural colour variation in mimetic Heliconius butterflies

Project description:This SuperSeries is composed of the SubSeries listed below.

2021-12-10 | GSE190380 | GEO

Color-tuning of natural variants of heliorhodopsin.

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| S-EPMC7807009 | biostudies-literature

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