Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Cyanide Evolution (EVOLUTION OF CYANIDE METABOLIMS IN APOSEMATIC BUTTERFLIES: from gene characterization to community ecology)
Période du rapport: 2020-01-01 au 2021-12-31
In WP2, we were part of a study that created a genomic dataset of 58 heliconiine species, including a lot of genera and clades that were previously underrepresented in terms of genomic resources. This allowed us to understand how gene-flow, transposable elements, contraction-expansion of specific gene families, and gene networks has contributed for the diversification of heliconiines. We are currently using these dataset to establish the evolutionary trajectory of the genes involved in the biosynthesis of toxins in heliconiine butterflies. We found that CYP405As are duplicated in Heliconius and Eueides species, but not on other heliconiines. We used the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas and target-metabolomics to characterize the function of these genes (1 submitted paper and 1 in prep).
In WP3 we collected 272 Heliconiinae butterflies and 240 Passiflora plants across a 3,000 km latitudinal gradient within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Additionally, we also collected 137 Ithomiini butterflies during this fieldwork for a project in collaboration with Sanger Institute. Due to lockdowns and travel restrictions to control the spread of COVID-19m this project was delayed, but target-metabolomic analyses are being conducted on the collected samples which will allow us to understand how toxicity varies within and between species of heliconiine butterflies and how this is affected by their local Passiflora community (ongoing analyses - at least 2 publications are expected from this dataset).
This project resulted in
- Papers:
2 published papers (Biology Letter,s Peer J), 2 submitted (Nat. Com., Ecological Entomology) and 2 in prep (targeting the journals MBE and Molecular Ecology).
- Datasets:
1 transcriptome dataset published in ENA, 1 dataset about the distribution of heliconiine and ithomiine butterflies in the Atlantic Forest published in Zenodo and 1 chemical and fitness dataset published in Dryad. We are also about to published on NCBI and Lepbase a dataset composed of 58 heliconiine genomes, of which 29 were completely new and 10 improved assemblies.
- Contribution to science-training within my institution:
Thesis supervision of 2 bachelor students, 1 master student and several interns in work-experience.
- Fieldwork and Entomological collections:
We visited 9 nature reserves across a 3,000 km latitudinal gradient within the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. We collected samples from 425 butterflies for the host lab collection, which includes records of geographical distribution, wing photos, DNA and chemical extracts. We also collected several butterflies for the entomological collection of UFRN (RN, Brazil) and UNICAMP (SP, Brazil).
- Outreach:
2 outreach activities (Meet the Insects and Minerva Scientifica: Miriam Rothschild).
- Non-scientific communication:
1 publication about the paper de Castro et al. 2021 – Biology Letters.
- Grant:
1 awarded NERC standard grant (Co- Investigator)