Diana Alexandra Arias Cardenas - Genomics of the diversification of Heliconius cydno (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) in northern South America

Heliconius cydno individual.

Home institution and supervisor
Camilo Salazar. U Rosario, Colombia.

Host institution and supervisor
Mark Ravinet. UiO, Norway. 2024-2025.

Project description
The natural distribution of species arises because of interactions among environmental variations, intrinsic characteristics of organisms, and evolutionary history. However, significant geographic events such as the uplift of mountains (for example, the Andes in South America) have promoted the diversification of lineages via allopatric speciation or dispersal through valleys. The genus Heliconius (Nymphalidae: Heliconiinae) is a group of toxic and aposematic butterflies that are abundantly distributed in the Neotropical region. They have been extensively studied because of their diverse aposematic coloration, Müllerian mimicry, and high intraspecific geographic variation.

Heliconius cydno is a large butterfly with a black background and white or yellow transversal bands that is distributed from Central America to northern South America. This species represents an interesting study system, as it exhibits recent adaptive radiation (~2 million years) with considerable geographic variation in its wing coloration pattern along the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia. This study aims to understand the evolution of H. cydno radiation using whole-genome sequencing data by focusing on two aspects: 1) determining the role of Andean orogeny in the diversification and origin of the radiation; and 2) identifying regions of the genome (cis-regulatory modular architecture) that may be involved in generating phenotypic diversity in this species.