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Butterfly wings exhibit a diversity of patterns which can vary between forewings and hindwings and spatially across the same wing. Regulation of morphological variation involves changes in how genes are expressed across different spatial scales which is driven by chromatin dynamics during development. How patterns of chromatin dynamics correspond to morphological variation remains unclear. Here we compared the chromatin landscape between forewings and hindwings and also across the proximal and distal regions of the hindwings in two butterfly species, Bicyclus anynana and Danaus plexippus. We found that the chromatin profile varied significantly between the different wing regions, however, there was no clear correspondence between the chromatin profile and the wing patterns. In some cases, wing regions with different phenotypes shared the same chromatin profile whereas those with a similar phenotype had a different profile. We also found that in the forewing, open chromatin regions (OCRs) were AT rich whereas those in the hindwing were GC rich. GC content of the OCRs also varied between the proximal and hindwing regions. These differences in GC content were also reflected in the transcription factor binding motifs that were differentially enriched between the wings and wing regions. Our results suggest that distinct wing patterns may result from the interaction of pioneer factors, including Hox genes, differentially opening chromatin in different wings and wing regions and cooperating with other transcriptions factors, that show preferences for specific GC content, to function either as activator or repressors of nearby genes.

The organizational role for hormones in the regulation of sexual behavior is currently poorly explored. Previous work showed that seasonal variation in levels of the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) during pupal development regulates plasticity in male courtship behavior in Bicyclus anynana butterflies. Wet season (WS) males, reared at high temperature, have high levels of 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) during pupation and become active courters. Dry season (DS) males, reared at low temperatures, have lower levels of 20E and lower courtship rates. Rescue of WS courtship rates can be achieved via injection of 20E into DS male pupae, but it is still unknown whether 20E alters gene expression in the pupal brain, and if so, the identity of those targets. Using transcriptomics, qPCR, and behavioral assays with a transgenic knockout, we show that higher expression levels of the yellow gene in DS male pupal brains, relative to WS brains, represses courtship in DS males. Furthermore, injecting DS males with 20E downregulates yellow to WS levels 4 hours post-injection, revealing a hormone sensitive window that determines courtship behavior. These findings are in striking contrast to Drosophila, where yellow is required for active male courtship behavior. We conclude that 20E plays an organizational role during pupal brain development by regulating the expression of yellow, which is a repressor of the neural circuity for male courtship behavior in B. anynana. This work shows that similar to vertebrates, hormones can also play an organizational role in insect brains, leading to permanent changes in adult sexual behavior.Significance StatementBehavioral plasticity in adult insects is known to be regulated by hormones, which activate neural circuits in response to environmental cues. Here, we show that hormones can also regulate adult behavioral plasticity by altering gene expression during brain development, adjusting the insect’s behavior to predictable seasonal environmental variation. We show that seasonal changes in the hormone 20E alters expression of the yellow gene in the developing pupal brain of Bicyclus anynana butterflies, which leads to differences in male courtship behavior between the dry and wet seasonal forms. This work provides one of the first examples of the organizational role of hormones in altering gene expression and adult sexual behavior in the developing insect brain.

Butterfly eyespots are beautiful novel traits with an unknown developmental origin. Here we show that eyespots likely originated via co-option of the antennal gene-regulatory network (GRN) to novel locations on the wing. Using comparative transcriptome analysis, we show that eyespots cluster with antennae relative to multiple other tissues. Furthermore, three genes essential for eyespot development (Distal-less(Dll),spalt(sal), andAntennapedia(Antp)) share similar regulatory connections as those observed in the antennal GRN. CRISPR knockout ofcis-regulatory elements (CREs) forDllandsalled to the loss of eyespots and antennae, and also legs and wings, demonstrating that these CREs are highly pleiotropic. We conclude that eyespots likely re-used the ancient antennal GRN, a network previously implicated also in the development of legs and wings.

Eyespots on the wings of nymphalid butterflies represent colorful examples of the process of pattern formation, yet the developmental origins and the mechanisms behind eyespot differentiation are still not fully understood. Here we re-examine the function ofDistal-less (Dll)in eyespot development, which is still unclear. We show that CRISPR-Cas9 induced exon 2 mutations inBicyclus anynanaleads to exon skipping and ectopic eyespots on the wing. Exon 3 mutations, however, lead to null/missense transcripts, missing eyespots, lighter wing coloration, loss of scales, and a variety of other phenotypes implicatingDllin the process of eyespot differentiation. Reaction-diffusion modeling enabled exploration of the function ofDllin eyespot formation, and accurately replicated a wide-range of mutant phenotypes. These results confirm thatDllis a required activator of eyespot development, scale growth and melanization and point to a new mechanism of alternative splicing to achieveDllover-expression phenotypes.