Functional genomics of the Glanville fritillary butterfly
Year: 2014
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The glanville fritillary butterfly is an important ecological model species for habitat fragmentation, whose genetics was poorly understood. In order to expand the research of this butterfly species into the realm of functional genomics a lot genetic tools were developed. These tools were used to investigate the genetic basis of phenotypic traits that are important in the wild. Gene expression microarrays based on de novo assembled transcriptome were used to study expression differences between adult butterflies from newly established colonies and older colonies as well as gene expression variation among larval families reared in three thermal regimens during final larval instar. Colonization and larval development are crucially important in maintaining the metapopulation structure of glanville fritillary butterfly in the Åland. We identified gene expression differences than can explain the observed variation in the phenotypes in the natural population. We sequenced the full genome of the glanville fritillary butterfly and used this to do additional gene expression and allelic variation analysis variation from multiple populations around the baltic sea using rna sequencing (rna-seq). Flight induced gene expression changes were analyzed using butterflies from Åland islands and the small isolated Pieni Tytärsaari ("daughter island") populations in a forced flight experiment. Fragmented populations (Åland islands and Uppland) were compared to continuous populations (saaremaa and öland) in order to find common signatures of selection caused by habitat fragmentation. Together these four full-genome studies have revealed that habitat fragmentation causes selection pressure on an intricately connected set of genes and pathways that leads to a so called life history syndrome , where the butterflies that colonize new habitat patches have a distinct set of traits and associated expression differences in these traits that make them more successful in establishing new colonies.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Jouni Kvist
Language: English
Subfield: Insect Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2120350573