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The gene cortex controls mimicry and crypsis in butterflies and moths
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Edité par CCSD ; Nature Publishing Group -
International audience. The wing patterns of butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) are diverse and striking examples of evolutionary diversification by natural selection 1,2. Lepidopteran wing colour patterns are a key innovation, consisting of arrays of coloured scales. We still lack a general understanding of how these patterns are controlled and whether this control shows any commonality across the 160,000 moth and 17,000 butterfly species. Here, we use fine-scale mapping with population genomics and gene expression analyses to identify a gene, cortex, that regulates pattern switches in multiple species across the mimetic radiation in Heliconius butterflies. cortex belongs to a fast-evolving subfamily of the otherwise highly conserved fizzy family of cell-cycle regulators 3 , suggesting that it probably regulates pigmentation patterning by regulating scale cell development. In parallel with findings in the peppered moth (Biston betularia) 4 , our results suggest that this mechanism is common within Lepidoptera and that cortex has become a major target for natural selection acting on colour and pattern variation in this group of insects. In Heliconius, there is a major effect locus, Yb, that controls a diversity of colour pattern elements across the genus. It is the only locus in Heliconius that regulates all scale types and colours, including the diversity of white and yellow pattern elements in the two co-mimics H. melpomene and H. erato, and whole-wing variation in black, yellow, white, and orange/red elements in H. numata 5-7. In addition, genetic variation underlying the Bigeye wing pattern mutation in Bicyclus any-nana, melanism in the peppered moth, Biston betularia, and mela-nism and patterning differences in the silkmoth, Bombyx mori, have all been localized to homologous genomic regions 8-10
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