Cytochrome P450 gene Cyp337 and heritability of fitness traits in the Glanville fritillary butterfly

Fitness-related life history traits often show substantial heritable genetic variation in natural populations, but knowledge of the genetic architecture of these traits is limited. In the Glanville fritillary butterfly, we measured the heritability of key life history traits in a large outdoor population cage during two years and generations, and combined this experiment with an association study of a set of candidate genes. The genes were selected on the basis of previous genomic and transcriptomic studies and have been linked to the physiology and life history of this or other arthropod species. Heritability was high and significant for two traits, post-diapause larval development time (h2 = 0.37) and lifetime egg (and larval) production (h2 = 0.62); the latter is closely related to lifetime reproductive success and therefore fitness. We discovered a strong association between genetic polymorphism in the Cytochrome P450 gene Cyp337 and lifetime egg production, which accounted for 14% ...