Evolutionary dynamics of genome size and content during the adaptive radiation of Heliconiini butterflies

Francesco Cicconardi (), Edoardo Milanetti, Erika C. Pinheiro de Castro, Anyi Mazo-Vargas, Steven M. Van Belleghem, Angelo Alberto Ruggieri, Pasi Rastas, Joseph Hanly, Elizabeth Evans, Chris D. Jiggins, W. Owen McMillan, Riccardo Papa, Daniele Di Marino, Arnaud Martin and Stephen H. Montgomery ()
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Francesco Cicconardi: Bristol University
Edoardo Milanetti: Sapienza University
Erika C. Pinheiro de Castro: University of Cambridge
Anyi Mazo-Vargas: Cornell University
Steven M. Van Belleghem: University of Puerto Rico
Angelo Alberto Ruggieri: University of Puerto Rico
Pasi Rastas: University of Helsinki
Joseph Hanly: The George Washington University
Elizabeth Evans: University of Puerto Rico
Chris D. Jiggins: University of Cambridge
W. Owen McMillan: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Riccardo Papa: University of Puerto Rico
Daniele Di Marino: Polytechnic University of Marche
Arnaud Martin: The George Washington University
Stephen H. Montgomery: Bristol University

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-24

Abstract: Abstract Heliconius butterflies, a speciose genus of Müllerian mimics, represent a classic example of an adaptive radiation that includes a range of derived dietary, life history, physiological and neural traits. However, key lineages within the genus, and across the broader Heliconiini tribe, lack genomic resources, limiting our understanding of how adaptive and neutral processes shaped genome evolution during their radiation. Here, we generate highly contiguous genome assemblies for nine Heliconiini, 29 additional reference-assembled genomes, and improve 10 existing assemblies. Altogether, we provide a dataset of annotated genomes for a total of 63 species, including 58 species within the Heliconiini tribe. We use this extensive dataset to generate a robust and dated heliconiine phylogeny, describe major patterns of introgression, explore the evolution of genome architecture, and the genomic basis of key innovations in this enigmatic group, including an assessment of the evolution of putative regulatory regions at the Heliconius stem. Our work illustrates how the increased resolution provided by such dense genomic sampling improves our power to generate and test gene-phenotype hypotheses, and precisely characterize how genomes evolve.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41412-5

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