Large-scale mutation in the evolution of a gene complex for cryptic coloration
Romain Villoutreix, Clarissa F. de Carvalho, Víctor Soria‐Carrasco, Dorothea Lindtke, Marisol De‐la‐Mora, Moritz Muschick, Jeffrey L. Feder, Thomas L. Parchman, Zach Gompert, Patrik Nosil
Abstract
How stick insects got their colors Stick insects of the genus Timema show variations in color that are likely due to selection for camouflage on their plant hosts. Some species are only brown or only green, whereas others span from reddish-pink hues to green to brown. To identify the genetics underlying this variation, Villoutreix et al. sequenced most extant California Timema species and identified a deletion that correlated with green body coloration in some species. However, this deletion appeared to be limited to the Northern California clade, with more species in the Southern California clade retaining this locus. In these southern species, a nongreen body color is likely caused by mutation. Even among closely related species, adaptive evolution can converge on the same phenotype from different evolutionary processes. Science , this issue p. 460