Ikonen, S. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2020

Improved chromosome level genome assembly of the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia) based on SMRT Sequencing and linkage map.

The Glanville fritillary (Melitaea cinxia) butterfly is a long-term model system for metapopulation dynamics research in fragmented landscapes. Here, we provide a chromosome level assembly of the butterflys genome produced from Pacific Biosciences sequencing of a pool of males, combined with a linkage map from population crosses. The final assembly size of 484 Mb is an increase of 94 Mb on the previously published genome. Estimation of the completeness of the genome with BUSCO, indicates that the genome contains 93 - 95% of the BUSCO genes in complete and single copies. We predicted 14,830 gene models using the MAKER pipeline and manually curated 1,232 of these gene models. The genome and its annotated gene models are a valuable resource for future comparative genomics, molecular biology, transcriptome and genetics studies on this species.

genomics↗

bioRxiv2020

Multidimensional plasticity in the Glanville fritillary butterfly: larval performance curves are temperature, host and family specific.

Variation in environmental conditions during development can lead to changes in life-history traits with long-lasting effects. Here, we study environmentally induced variation, i.e. the consequences of potential maternal oviposition choices, in a suite of life-history traits in pre-diapause larvae of the Glanville fritillary butterfly. We focus on offspring survival, early growth rates and relative fat reserves, and pay specific attention to intraspecific variation in the responses (GxExE). Globally, we found that thermal performance and survival curves varied between diets of two host plants, suggesting that host modifies the temperature impact, or vice versa. Additionally, we show that the relative fat content has a host-dependent, discontinuous response to developmental temperature. This implies that a potential switch in resource allocation, from more investment in growth at lower temperatures to storage at higher temperatures, is dependent on other environmental variables. Interestingly, we find that a large proportion of the variance in larval performance is explained by differences among families, or interactions with this variable. Finally, we demonstrate that these family-specific responses to the host plant remain largely consistent across thermal environments. Altogether, the results of our study underscore the importance of paying attention to intraspecific trait variation in the field of evolutionary ecology.

evolutionary biology↗