There are around 1.2 million described species so far across the tree of life. They come in all kinds of shapes, forms and color patterns. Some of these are spread around the globe, while others can only be found on a single island. This incredible biodiversity is what sustains the wide variety of ecosystems found on the planet, including those needed to sustain human life.
In our lab, we are interested in the origin of biodiversity, studying how and why it evolves. We focus our research on the evolution and adaptation of a genus of butterflies called Heliconius, a group of neotropical Lepidoptera that have been studied by evolutionary biologists for over 150 years.
We are a fun and enthusiastic group of field biologists. You will often find us at the lab insectaries feeding caterpillars, in the forest catching butterflies, or at the lab analyzing data.
Rosser, N., Seixas, F., Queste, L. M., Cama, B., Mori-Pezo, R., Kryvokhyzha, D., Nelson, M., Waite-Hudson, R., Goringe, M., Costa, M., Elias, M., Mendes Eleres de Figueiredo, C., Freitas, A. V. L., Joron, M., Kozak, K., Lamas, G., Martins, A. R. P., McMillan, W. O., Ready, J., … Dasmahapatra, K. K. (2024). Hybrid speciation driven by multilocus introgression of ecological traits. Nature, 628(8009), 811–817. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07263-w
Rossi, M., Hausmann, A. E., Alcami, P., Moest, M., Roussou, R., Van Belleghem, S. M., Wright, D. S., Kuo, C.-Y., Lozano-Urrego, D., Maulana, A., Melo-Flórez, L., Rueda-Muñoz, G., McMahon, S., Linares, M., Osman, C., McMillan, W. O., Pardo-Diaz, C., Salazar, C., & Merrill, R. M. (2024). Adaptive introgression of a visual preference gene. Science, 383(6689), 1368–1373.
Cicconardi, F., Milanetti, E., Pinheiro de Castro, E. C., Mazo-Vargas, A., Van Belleghem, S. M., Ruggieri, A. A., Rastas, P., Hanly, J., Evans, E., Jiggins, C. D., Owen McMillan, W., Papa, R., Di Marino, D., Martin, A., & Montgomery, S. H. (2023). Evolutionary dynamics of genome size and content during the adaptive radiation of Heliconiini butterflies. Nature Communications, 14(1), 5620. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41412-5
Hanly, J. J., Loh, L. S., Mazo-Vargas, A., Rivera-Miranda, T. S., Livraghi, L., Tendolkar, A., Day, C. R., Liutikaite, N., Earls, E. A., Corning, O. B. W. H., D’Souza, N., Hermina-Perez, J. J., Mehta, C., Ainsworth, J. A., Rossi, M., Papa, R., McMillan, W. O., Perry, M. W., & Martin, A. (2023). Frizzled2 receives WntA signaling during butterfly wing pattern formation. Development, 150(18), dev201868. https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.201868
Kuo, C.-Y., Melo-Flóres, L., Aragón, A., Oberweiser, M. M., McMillan, W. O., Pardo-Diaz, C., Salazar, C., & Merrill, R. M. (2024). Divergent warning patterns influence male and female mating behaviours in a tropical butterfly. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 37(3), 267–273. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeb/voae010
Martins, A. R. P., Warren, N. B., McMillan, W. O., & Barrett, R. D. H. (2024). Spatiotemporal dynamics in butterfly hybrid zones. Insect Science, 31(2), 328–353. https://doi.org/10.1111/1744-7917.13262
Page, E., Queste, L. M., Rosser, N., Salazar, P. A., Nadeau, N. J., Mallet, J., Srygley, R. B., McMillan, W. O., & Dasmahapatra, K. K. (2024). Pervasive mimicry in flight behavior among aposematic butterflies. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(11), e2300886121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2300886121
Pirani, R. M., Arias, C. F., Charles, K., Chung, A. K., Curlis, J. D., Nicholson, D. J., Vargas, M., Cox, C. L., McMillan, W. O., & Logan, M. L. (2024). A high-quality genome for the slender anole (Anolis apletophallus): An emerging model for field studies of tropical ecology and evolution. G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics, 14(1), jkad248. https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkad248
Young entomologist Sol Parra uses gene editing technology to understand how color pattern mimicry evolves in butterflies.
Unrelated species of Heliconius butterflies look almost identical! Does this mean their wing color patterns evolved the same way? Our Postdoc, Carolina Concha, answers this question through her research, providing incredible insights about the genomic basis of evolutionary change.
