Genetic, developmental and neural changes underlying evolving butterfly mate preference

Many studies have linked genetic variation to behavior, but the links
between that variation and the neural circuits that drive behavior remain
elusive. We investigated the architecture of mate choice behavior in
Heliconius butterflies, which use vision to identify preferred mates based
on wing color patterns. We found that Heliconius cydno mate preference is
associated with inter-photoreceptor inhibition of ultraviolet-sensitive
photoreceptors (PRs) by long-wavelength sensitive PRs; identified a small
number of genetic loci associated with preference variation; and began to
link these multiple layers of behavior variation together through analyses
of developmental gene networks. Our results support the idea that altered
peripheral neural computations, driven by changes to underlying
developmental genetic processes, can significantly and rapidly alter
essential behaviors.  This repository contains raw data, scripts,
notebooks, and intermediate files that were used to perform and analyze
genome-wide association studies and to analyze RNA-seq data generated by
and presented in the associated publication. Raw electrophysiology results
are also provided.