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closeAn historical context for this study
Posted by cjiggins on 22 Jan 2016 at 09:58 GMT
There is a very long history of appreciation of the importance of hybridisation in the Heliconius community, and some of the early workers were very insightful in predicting phenomena that we can now detect using genomic techniques. This comment is intended to highlight some of this history. For example as early as 1972, Brown and Mielke hypothesised that Heliconius heurippa had a hybrid wing pattern, and this was investigated more fully by Mauricio Linares during his PhD in Texas supervised by Larry Gilbert. Larry also wrote about the importance of hybridisation in generating evolutionary novelty more widely across the genus (Gilbert 2003). He speculated that 'Early in the history of Heliconius the pattern tool box might have gradually diversified through mutation. ... the major ways that species and races now differ may have been quickly accumulated among early evolving species of the genus. At that point we can imagine that hybridization and introgression would have begun to accelerate in importance and quickly would have replaced mutation as the proximate generator for novel pattern genotypes in Heliconius'. Based on his experience of rearing Heliconius, he observed that: 'Virtually all novel and heritable alterations of wing scale pattern seen in my cultures over three decades have proved to be the results of introgression'.
We are proud to be part of this long tradition of Heliconius biologists and hope that by posting this comment we can place our work into its correct historical context. We thank Arnaud Martin who stimulated the discussion that led to this comment.
Brown, K. S., and O. H. H. Mielke. 1972. The heliconians of Brazil (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). Part II. Introduction and general comments, with a supplementary revision of the tribe. Zoologica, N.Y. 57: 1-40.
Gilbert LE. 2003. Adaptive novelty through introgression in Heliconius wing patterns: Evidence for shared genetic ‘tool box’ from synthetic hybrid zones and a theory of diversification. In: Boggs CL, Watt WB, Ehrlich PR, eds. Ecology and Evolution Taking Flight: Butterflies as Model Systems. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.