Abstract
Heliconius erato and H. melpomene are warningly coloured tropical butterflies that show mimetic covariation throughout the neotropics. Central American, West Colombian, and North Colombian colour pattern races of both species meet and form hybrid zones in Panama. These hybrid zones were sampled along a transect. The major colour pattern changes are determined by three alleles at a single locus in each species. There is no evidence for hybrid breakdown or mating incompatibility between any of the phenotypes in Panama, and local genotypic frequencies are not significantly different from Hardy-Weinberg expectation.
I simulated a single-locus, two-allele warning colour hybrid zone (cline) with dominance. Predator selection on warning colour patterns was assumed to be frequency-dependent, so that, at any point in the cline, a rare phenotype has lower fitness than a common phenotype. Simulation shows that such a cline rapidly reaches a stable slope. Since the model does not depend on selection caused by the abiotic environment, the cline is positionally unstable. Even if the two phenotypes are equally fit “dominance drive” tends to increase the area in which the dominant allele is present. Differences in fitness of the phenotypes and density gradients can also cause cline movement. Hybrid zone movement might either be rapid enough to obliterate patterns that were formed in Pleistocene refugia, or so slow as to make secondary contact a requirement for the existence of hybrid zones. A third possibility is that local variations in population density will normally prevent hybrid zone movement, even if this is potentially rapid. Better estimates of dispersal and selection are needed to resolve this issue.
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Mallet, J. Hybrid zones of Heliconius butterflies in Panama and the stability and movement of warning colour clines. Heredity 56, 191–202 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1986.31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.1986.31
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