Population genetic structure and evolution of Batesian mimicry in
Papilio polytes from the Ryukyu Islands, Japan, analyzed by
genotyping-by-sequencing
Abstract
Batesian mimicry is a striking example of Darwinian evolution, in which
a mimetic species resembles toxic or unpalatable model species, thereby,
receiving protection from predators. In some species exhibiting Batesian
mimicry, non-mimetic individuals coexist in the same population despite
the benefits of mimicry, and the relative abundance of mimetic
individuals in the population varies among localities. In a previous
study, we found that the mimic ratios (MRs), which varied among the
Islands, were likely to be explained by the model abundance of each
habitat, rather than isolation-by-distance or phylogenetic constraint in
the swallowtail butterfly, Papilio polytes, on the Ryukyu Islands in
Japan. Because the previous study, however, was based on the
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that may sometimes mislead conclusion stemming
from the inherent genetic properties, this possibility was reexamined
based on hundreds of nuclear single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of
95 P. polytes individuals from five Islands of the Ryukyus. We found
that the population genetic and phylogenetic structures of P. polytes
largely corresponded to the geographic arrangement of the habitat
Islands, and the genetic distances among island populations
significantly correlated with the geographic distances, which was not
evident by the mtDNA-based analysis. The revised SNP-based genetic
distances with a partial correlation approach revealed that the MRs of
P. polytes were strongly correlated with the model abundance of each
island, implying that negative frequency-dependent selection shaped and
maintained the mimetic polymorphism. Taken together, we suggest that
predation pressure, not neutral factors, is major driving force to
determine the relative abundance of Batesian mimicry in P. polytes from
the Ryukyus.