Curious butterflies are genetically different
Thursday, April 21, 2011 - 09:00
in Biology & Nature
Understanding mechanisms that are fundamental to changes in life history traits is crucial for our understanding of adaption by natural selection. While research in this field has improved, functional genomics studies of life history adaptations have only started to get off the ground. A team of scientists from Finland and the US are helping drive this research. They have found that descendants of 'exploratory' butterflies that colonised new habitats are genetically different from their cousins that prefer to stay put.