ArticleNature2011
Chromosomal rearrangements maintain a polymorphic supergene controlling butterfly mimicry.
Article in Nature, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 292 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
292 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 623 citations in OpenAlex.
- Speciation through chromosomal fusion and fission in Lepidoptera.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Pooled it
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- Ancestral Karyotype Reconstruction Reveals Chromosome Rearrangements and Large Inversions inPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Genetic and phenotypic variation in wood tiger moths from the Caucasus: insights into male warning color variation.Insect science · 2026Article
- Ancient inversion polymorphisms are locally adaptive in a widespread butterfly species.Science advances · 2026Article
- de novo Assembly of five Highly Contiguous Heliconius Butterfly Genomes With Long-Read Sequencing Alone.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Genetic parallelism underpins convergent mimicry coloration in Lepidoptera across 120 million years of evolution.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- A century of theories of balancing selection.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2026Review
- Evolutionary genomic basis of mimicry diversity of Epicopeiidae moths.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- The Genetic Basis of Color Polymorphism in the Orb-Web SpiderEcology and evolution · 2026Article
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- Ancestral and local adaptation contribute to dispersal out of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in a bumblebee.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Massive Genomic and Transcriptomic Changes Within a Young Inversion Polymorphism in the Absence of Degeneration.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
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- The "Chameleon Ant"Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Genome architecture evolution in an invasive copepod species complex.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Convergent Evolution and the Epigenome.Epigenomes · 2025Review
- Genome divergence between European anchovy ecotypes fuelled by structural variants originating from trans-equatorial admixture.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
232 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
23 authors at 9 institutions in 5 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Supergenes are tight clusters of loci that facilitate the co-segregation of adaptive variation, providing integrated control of complex adaptive phenotypes. Polymorphic supergenes, in which specific combinations of traits are maintained within a single population, were first described for 'pin' and 'thrum' floral types in Primula and Fagopyrum, but classic examples are also found in insect mimicry and snail morphology. Understanding the evolutionary mechanisms that generate these co-adapted gene sets, as well as the mode of limiting the production of unfit recombinant forms, remains a substantial challenge. Here we show that individual wing-pattern morphs in the polymorphic mimetic butterfly Heliconius numata are associated with different genomic rearrangements at the supergene locus P. These rearrangements tighten the genetic linkage between at least two colour-pattern loci that are known to recombine in closely related species, with complete suppression of recombination being observed in experimental crosses across a 400-kilobase interval containing at least 18 genes. In natural populations, notable patterns of linkage disequilibrium (LD) are observed across the entire P region. The resulting divergent haplotype clades and inversion breakpoints are found in complete association with wing-pattern morphs. Our results indicate that allelic combinations at known wing-patterning loci have become locked together in a polymorphic rearrangement at the P locus, forming a supergene that acts as a simple switch between complex adaptive phenotypes found in sympatry. These findings highlight how genomic rearrangements can have a central role in the coexistence of adaptive phenotypes involving several genes acting in concert, by locally limiting recombination and gene flow.
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