Developmental genetics and evolution of butterfly colour patterns

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Understanding the interactions between genes and gene products is one of the greatest challenges to modern biology. These complex interactions can produce biological structures of amazing complexity, but even the simplest of structures are often the product of many genes interacting with each other during development. When these genetic interactions go awry, it can result in birth defects, congenital disease, or even cancer. To achieve the long-term goal of understanding the genetic basis for phenotypic evolution, my lab has chosen to explore the genetic networks that underlie the production of colour patterns on the wings of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and elucidate how these networks have changed to produce colour pattern diversity. Butterfly color patterns are an excellent model system in which to do this work because they are highly variable, consist of clearly defined subunits, exist in two dimensions, and are structurally simple. Further, many colour patterns have defined roles in thermoregulation, mate choice, and predator avoidance and thus have clear fitness benefits associated with natural or sexual selection, making the evolution and development of these patterns particularly interesting. Funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada will enable my laboratory to study patterns of genetic interaction that are responsible for producing some very simple phenotypes: the colour patterns on the wings of butterflies. By applying experimental and computational approaches to the development of these simple phenotypes, we can learn fundamental principles about how networks of genes behave. We can then apply these fundamental principles to more complex genetic networks responsible for the complex phenotypes critical to the health of humans and all other organisms.