We had two papers that came out this weekend – first a paper led by Richard Wallbank showing how recombination between enhancer elements can lead to novelty and diversity in wing patterns, published in PLoS Biology. This was covered by a press release on the university website and elsewhere on the web.

And second a major upgrade to the H. melpomene genome, published by John Davey in G3. The new reference genome used whole genome sequenced mapping family and PacBio long read sequence data. A comparative linkage map in the related genus Eueides demonstrated how 10 chromosomal fusions have occurred in the ancestor of the genus Heliconius.