Media coverage and outreach
Heliconius in the NY Times : March 12, 2013
This morning there was a great article in the NY Times about mimicry and the genes causing convergent evolution, written by Sean Carroll
Heliconius genome published! : May 16, 2012
Our Heliconius Genome Consortium paper was just published in Nature describing the genome sequence of Heliconius melpomene and featured on the University web page. The paper showed that mimetic Heliconius can converge by exchanging genes through hybridization. Its Heliconius heurippa all over again…
Happy christmas : December 26, 2011
Festive greetings to all our collaborators and colleagues. We can celebrate with a cover image and the first paper in a Phil Trans Roy Soc issue on speciation genomics. Nice work Nicola and everyone else who was involved.
‘Supergene’ behind butterfly wing design : August 15, 2011
Our Nature paper received quite a bit of press ccoverage – here are a few examples:
Discover Magazine
Nature
Eurekalert
Optix paper in Science : July 25, 2011
Evidence for a role of the Optix transcription factor in causing red wing patterning diversification in mimetic Heliconius was published this week in Science. The optix gene was identified from the red wing patterning region cloned by Simon Baxter – Arnaud Martin and Riccardo Papa in UC Irvine subsequently showed that expression of optix in particular is associated with red wing patterning. This association is unique to Heliconius as far as we can tell, so this seems to represent a derived mechanism of wing pattern specification. The paper also received some press coverage at Science Daily, Cosmos
Evolution cover : April 27, 2011
A courting Heliconius cydno featured on the cover of the recent issue of Evolution
Pupal sludge : March 4, 2011
I was interviewed about what happens when a butterfly pupates – the exact question was ‘I was wondering, what exactly happens when a caterpillar pupates and then turns into a butterfly? Does it liquefy into some sort of protein-sludge and start from scratch or does it just grow wings?’. You can hear my answer on the Naked Scientist page (look for ‘Question of the week’)
Genetics of adaptation : October 29, 2010
We published a review article on the genetics of adaptation, which featured a picture of Heliconius ismenius on the cover of Trends in Genetics.
. We argued that mutations of large effect play a major role in controlling evolutionary change in the wild.
Speakers corner : June 17, 2010
Chris spoke about butterfly speciation at the ‘Scientists at Speakers Corner’ event earlier this week. There are some photos here. The event was covered by a blog in New Scientist.
Animal Colours in the Zoology Museum : March 3, 2010
Nicola Nadeau has organised an exhibit on animal colouration for Cambridge Science week, which will be in the Zoology Museum for Science on Saturday on March 13th and for the next few weeks. Come along and try your hand at spot the difference between Mullerian mimics, lots of iridescent animal colours, crypsis etc etc.
A Pair in PLoS : February 5, 2010
We published two papers in PLoS Genetics today, showing population genetic patterns across hybrid zones in the co-mimics Heliconius melpomene and H. erato. Arnaud Martin and co-authors wrote a perspective piece in the same journal outlining the results – see here. The publication was covered as a news item on the front page of the University web page, and by the Daily Telegraph, Planet Earth (NERC publication), Red Orbit, Science Daily, and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
We are keen supporters of open access publishing (especially when the papers get accepted).
Press_release_Feb10 : February 3, 2010
Here are links to high resolution files of some images to go with the press release of 3 Feb 2010.
All images should be marked ‘Copyright Chris Jiggins, University of Cambridge’.
Heliconius melpomene aglaope from lowland amazonian Peru
Heliconius melpomene aglaope from lowland amazonian Peru image 2
Heliconius melpomene amaryllis from the Andes of north eastern Peru
Heliconius erato favorinus from the Andes of north eastern Peru (co-mimic of amaryllis)
Heliconius erato emma from lowland amazonian Peru (co-mimic of aglaope)
Landscape in a hybrid zone in the Andes 1
Landscape in a hybrid zone in the Andes 2
Fast evolution.. : September 19, 2009
Emily Hornett has just published a paper in Current Biology demonstrating rapid changes in a sex-ratio distorting bacteria and a supressor locus in the host butterfly, Hypolimnas bolina. The supressor has evolved to prevent the male-killing effect of the bacterium. The study used museum specimens to document rapid evolutionary change over historical time. Here is a link to the paper.
The paper had some publicity, such as on ScienceBlogs, MSNBC and Eurekalert.
Napeogenes phylogeny : June 16, 2009
Our recent Napeogenes phylogeny published in Molecular Ecology (18:1716-1729) has been covered in the Brazilian press a few times, including this piece in the Jornal da UniCamp
Ecological convergence of mimetic butterflies : January 5, 2009
Our recent Plos Biology paper describing ecological convergence between mimetic ithomiine butterflies was covered by the BBC and an interview for radio 5Live by the Naked Scientist – Listen here. The paper was also featured on the cover of Plos Biology.
JEB cover photo : May 18, 2008
Our paper in Journal of Evolutionary Biology was featured on the cover. See here for the journal cover art gallery.
C. Estrada and C. D. Jiggins, “Interspecific sexual attraction because of convergence in warning colouration: is there a conflict between natural and sexual selection in mimetic species?,” Journal of Evolutionary Biology, vol. 21, iss. 3, pp. 749-60, 2008.
‘Supergene’ mapping : September 26, 2006
Our Plos Biology paper describing comparative mapping of patterning genes between Heliconius species was covered by the Daily Telegrah and GLOBO in Brazil.
Hybrid speciation : June 23, 2006
Our paper in Nature about hybrid speciation in H. heurippa has been widely covered in the media. Here are a few links to some of the stories:
New Scientist , The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian , the BBC News web site, Frankfurter Allgemaine Zeitung, a nice article by Carl Zimmer and another on Science Now. It was even given space on the Fox News web site.
