Migration Genetics Take Flight: Genetic and Genomic Insights into Monarch Butterfly Migration

Overview

Journal Curr Opin Insect Sci

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty Biology

Date 2023 Jun 29

PMID 37385346

Authors

Micah G Freedman

Marcus R Kronforst

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Monarch butterflies have emerged as a model system in migration genetics. Despite inherent challenges associated with studying the integrative phenotypes that characterize migration, recent research has highlighted genes and transcriptional networks underlying aspects of the monarch's migratory syndrome. Circadian clock genes and the vitamin A synthesis pathway regulate reproductive diapause initiation, while diapause termination appears to involve calcium and insulin signaling. Comparative approaches have highlighted genes that distinguish migratory and nonmigratory monarch populations, as well as genes associated with natural variation in propensity to initiate diapause. Population genetic techniques demonstrate that seasonal migration can collapse patterns of spatial structure at continental scales, whereas loss of migration can drive differentiation between even nearby populations. Finally, population genetics can be applied to reconstruct the monarch's evolutionary history and search for contemporary demographic changes, which can provide relevant context for understanding recently observed declines in overwintering North American monarch numbers.

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