Cyanide Evolution · EVOLUTION OF CYANIDE METABOLIMS IN APOSEMATIC BUTTERFLIES: from gene characterization to community ecology
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2020-01-01 → 2022-09-02
- EU contribution
- €224,934
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
EVOLUTION OF CYANIDE METABOLIMS IN APOSEMATIC BUTTERFLIES: from gene characterization to community ecology
Heliconius butterflies has been studied by evolutionary biologists for over 150 years: they were used to exemplify the theory of mimicry as well as plant-insect coevolution. Yet, although the toxicity of Heliconius butterflies plays a central role in their macroevolution, the genetic and phenotypic bases of their chemical defences has been under studied. This project aimed to unravel how Heliconius butterflies evolved to be toxic: from characterizing the genes associate with this process to investigating how butterfly toxicity varies within and between species, in regard to their hostplants. This is important for society because while some generalist heliconiines species have become agricultural pest in passionfruit fields, at least one specialized species (H. naterreri) is vulnerable to extinction. Understanding the chemical mediation of the relationship between toxic butterflies and their food plants can be useful for conservation initiatives as well as the development of sustainable strategies for control of crop pests. Moreover, most information we have about these butterflies focus on communities in the Amazon Forest, but there is much less information about these butterflies in other ecosystems. This project also aimed to collect data on the distribution of heliconiine butterflies and their Passiflora hostplants across a 3,000km latitudinal gradient within Brazilian Atlantic Forest.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The colourful and toxic Heliconius butterflies are well-established models to study evolution of aposematims and mimicry, yet the genetic basis of their toxicity and how this varies in different populations remains unknown. Heliconius are toxic butterflies because they contain cyanide-releasing compounds called cyanogenic glucosides, which they can both biosynthesize or uptake from Passiflora plants, their co-evolutionary partner, during larval feeding. This multidisciplinary project brings together ecology, genetics, biochemistry and evolutionary biology to investigate how toxicity and interactions with Passiflora plants has shaped the evolution of these butterflies. Thus, I will combine the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas with different OMICs approaches (metabolomics, transcriptomics and phenomics) to (1) decipher the genetic and phenotipic bases of cyanogenesis in Heliconius butterflies and (2) unravel the evolutionary trajectory of this defence system in the Heliconiine tribe. Moreover, I will also (3) establish how cyanogenesis vary within and between tropical and subtropical heliconiine-Passiflora communities of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, a biodiversity hotspot endangered by extreme deforestation.This project will give me the unique opportunity to expand my knowledge and skills repertoire on genetics, ecology, evolutionary biology and bioinformatics. I will be trained in advanced techniques such CRISPR-Cas, gene expression analysis, R programing, statistical methods applied to community ecology and matabolomics, etc. Also, during this fellowship I will excel my teaching/supervision, project management and communication abilities. All these expertise will be extremely valuable for the execution of the project and will bring great progress to my career development, increasing my chance of of reaching a long-term position in academia.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE · CAMBRIDGECoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union