Evidence for a Single, Ancient Origin of a Genus-Wide Alternative Life History Strategy

Authors

Kalle Tunström, Stockholm University
Alyssa Woronik, Sacred Heart UniversityFollow
Joseph J. Hanly, George Washington University
Pasi Rastas, University of Helsinki
Anton Chichvarkhin, National Scientific Center of Marine Biology, Far Eastern Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladivostok
Andrew D. Warren, University of Florida
Akito Kawahara, University of Florida
Sean D. Schoville, University of Wisconsin
Vincent Ficarrotta, George Washington University
Adam H. Porter, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Ward B. Watt, University of South Carolina Columbia
Arnaud Martin, George Washington University
Christopher W. Wheat, Stockholm University

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2023

Abstract

Understanding the evolutionary origins and factors maintaining alternative life history strategies (ALHS) within species is a major goal of evolutionary research. While alternative alleles causing discrete ALHS are expected to purge or fix over time, one-third of the ~90 species of Colias butterflies are polymorphic for a female-limited ALHS called Alba. Whether Alba arose once, evolved in parallel, or has been exchanged among taxa is currently unknown. Using comparative genome-wide association study (GWAS) and population genomic analyses, we placed the genetic basis of Alba in time-calibrated phylogenomic framework, revealing that Alba evolved once near the base of the genus and has been subsequently maintained via introgression and balancing selection. CRISPR-Cas9 mutagenesis was then used to verify a putative cis-regulatory region of Alba, which we identified using phylogenetic foot printing. We hypothesize that this cis-regulatory region acts as a modular enhancer for the induction of the Alba ALHS, which has likely facilitated its long evolutionary persistence.

Comments

Epublication March 22, 2023

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abq3713 Abstract

PubMed ID

36947619

Recommended Citation

Tunström, K., Woronik, A., Hanly, J. J., Rastas, P., Chichvarkhin, A., Warren, A. D., Kawahara, A. Y., Schoville, S. D., Ficarrotta, V., Porter, A. H., Watt, W. B., Martin, A., & Wheat, C. W. (2023). Evidence for a single, ancient origin of a genus-wide alternative life history strategy. Science advances, 9(12), eabq3713. Doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abq3713

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.