A Rare Natural Phenomenon Most common butterfly species from the Amazon region created by hybridisation

In collaboration with a large international group of scientists led by Neil Rosser from Harvard University, USA, and Kanchon Dasmahapatra from the University of York, UK, an unusual mode of species evolution has been precisely demonstrated. A new species of butterfly from the Amazon region has evolved through hybridisation. In this evolutionary phenomenon, which is rare in the animal world, two different species have crossed. Professor Stefan Schulz from the Institute of Organic Chemistry at Technische Universität Braunschweig was involved in the work. The results have now been published in the journal Nature.

According to the article, one of the most common and conspicuous tropical butterflies, Heliconius elevatus, turned out to be a homoploid hybrid of Heliconius melpomene and Heliconius paradlinus, with which it has co-existed for 180,000 years. This type of speciation has rarely been described. However, 99 per cent of the genome comes from Heliconius pardalinus and only 1 per cent from Heliconius melpomene.

Nevertheless, the species remains stable because the 1 per cent contains important genes that determine, for example, wing colour or sex pheromones. Professor Stefan Schulz’s research group has been studying the complex pheromone chemistry of Heliconius butterflies for some time. The study shows that gene transfer can lead to reproductive isolation and the emergence of new species.