Complex modular architecture around a simple toolkit of wing pattern genes

Identifying the genomic changes that control morphological variation and understanding how they generate diversity is a major goal of evolutionary biology. In Heliconius butterflies, a small number of genes control the development of diverse wing colour patterns. Here, we used full-genome sequencing of individuals across the Heliconius erato radiation and closely related species to characterize genomic variation associated with wing pattern diversity. We show that variation around colour pattern genes is highly modular, with narrow genomic intervals associated with specific differences in colour and pattern. This modular architecture explains the diversity of colour patterns and provides a flexible mechanism for rapid morphological diversification.We acknowledge the University of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico INBRE grant P20 GM103475 from the National Institute for General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH); CNRS Nouraugues and CEBA awards (B.A.C.); National Science Foundation awards DEB-1257839 (B.A.C.), DEB-1257689 (W.O.M.), DEB-1027019 (W.O.M.); awards 1010094 and 1002410 from the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program of the National Science Foundation (NSF) for computational resources; and the Smithsonian Institution. This research was supported in part by Lilly Endowment, Inc., through its support for the Indiana University Pervasive Technology Institute, and in part by the Indiana METACyt Initiative. The Indiana METACyt Initiative at IU is also supported in part by Lilly Endowment, Inc

Coal in the 21st Century: a climate of change and uncertainty

Coal presents a particular set of challenges when balancing energy policy goals. Despite presenting viable solutions to the problems of energy security and global energy poverty, coal struggles, given its greenhouse-gas drawbacks, in a world of increasingly harmful climate change. Notwithstanding the harm caused to the environment, coal remains an expanding low-price route to meeting local energy needs. It is forecasted to remain a major global resource for the foreseeable future. In the short term it is predicted to have a 26% share of the global energy mix. Recent years have witnessed severe deviations from previously stable trends in coal markets and policy dynamics. According to the predictions by the International Energy Agency (IEA), a variety of factors ranging from the planned phase-out of coal in countries such as Denmark, France and the UK, to changes in policy in China and import-dependency in India, and demand drop in the US have together resulted in the largest decline in coal production in 2015 since 1971 (IEA, Coal Information, 2016). This paper seeks to outline basic coal facts, recent market trends and directions globally and provides an overview of issues shaping the future of coal in the twenty-first century. This paper seeks to outline basic coal facts, recent market trends and directions globally and provide an overview of issues shaping the future of coal in the 21st century

Conservatism and novelty in the genetic architecture of adaptation in Heliconius butterflies

10 pagesInternational audienceUnderstanding the genetic architecture of adaptive traits has been at the centre of modern evolutionary biology since Fisher; however, evaluating how the genetic architecture of ecologically important traits influences their diversification has been hampered by the scarcity of empirical data. Now, high-throughput genomics facilitates the detailed exploration of variation in the genome-to-phenotype map among closely related taxa. Here, we investigate the evolution of wing pattern diversity in Heliconius, a clade of neotropical butterflies that have undergone an adaptive radiation for wing-pattern mimicry and are influenced by distinct selection regimes. Using crosses between natural wing-pattern variants, we used genome-wide restriction site-associated DNA (RAD) genotyping, traditional linkage mapping and multivariate image analysis to study the evolution of the architecture of adaptive variation in two closely related species: Heliconius hecale and H. ismenius. We implemented a new morphometric procedure for the analysis of whole-wing pattern variation, which allows visualising spatial heatmaps of genotype-to-phenotype association for each quantitative trait locus separately. We used the H. melpomene reference genome to fine-map variation for each major wing-patterning region uncovered, evaluated the role of candidate genes and compared genetic architectures across the genus. Our results show that, although the loci responding to mimicry selection are highly conserved between species, their effect size and phenotypic action vary throughout the clade. Multilocus architecture is ancestral and maintained across species under directional selection, whereas the single-locus (supergene) inheritance controlling polymorphism in H. numata appears to have evolved only once. Nevertheless, the conservatism in the wing-patterning toolkit found throughout the genus does not appear to constrain phenotypic evolution towards local adaptive optima

Seven hundred years of fraternal orders

For hundreds of years there has been an allure in popular culture to the notion of a band of brothers. From before Shakespeare's Henry V, through Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, to the twenty-first century TV mini-series Band of Brothers, the phrase has evoked images of men fiercely loyal to one another, united for a cause greater than themselves. This interest has not been reflected in concerted scholarly attention to the long-term influence of fraternal organizations. This chapter introduces the theme of the volume in a literature review and contextualizes the authors' contributions