Home of the passion vine butterflies

Heliconius Homepage

Posted on by Posted in Genomics

I have established a server for sharing of unpublished genomic data among the community using a portal called CamTools run by the University of Cambridge. The agreement is that anyone using the site agrees to share ‘genome’ scale data sets with other users. Currently this is primarily Genome Survey Sequences, BAC clone sequences and transcriptomic sequence, but could be extended to other kinds of data as they become available. The aim is to make such information available for comparative analysis to all groups prior to publication. Here is my take on how you should approach use of these data:

1) If you plan a genome-wide comparative analysis using a data set generated by another researcher, then you should contact that person ahead of time and discuss the project.

2) If you are interested in fishing someone else’s data set for a particular gene, then feel free to download the data onto your own PC and have a look to see what is there. However if you find what you are looking for and are interested in using that information to further your own work then please talk to the person who obtained the data. In general I think that everyone should be open to their sequences being used provided the proposed project doesnt directly overlap with a project currently underway in the lab of whoever owns the data (or their collaborators). Every file is identified by the person who uploaded it – so it should be easy to get in touch with the original owner.

Of course, this site isnt designed as a public portal for genomic data – there is no genome browsing or BLAST facility. Its just a secure way of sharing large files.

Anyway, thats my take on things – let me know if you disagree or have any further comments, or if you want to use/contribute to the site.

I have been working with Heliconius butterflies since 1993, when I started my PhD with Jim Mallet in University College London. The original PhD advert is posted here. My original interests were in the ecology of tropical insects, and during my PhD work I studied a hybrid zone in Ecuador between two incipient species (Heliconius himera and H. erato). I did a little bit of population genetics during my PhD using allozyme loci, which now seems like a very antiquated technique. After a brief respite as a conservation biologist in Ecuador, I then continued with a Postdoc position with Jim, during which I worked mainly in Panama. This led us to the discovery that Heliconius melpomene and H. cydno use wing patterns as cues during mating, leading to reproductive isolation - an example of an ecological traits that contributes to assortative mating and a phenomenon that is now commonly termed a 'magic trait'. In collaboration with Owen McMillan I began to work on the genetic basis of wing patterns in about 2001, conducting crossing experiments in Panama with races of H. melpomene. Over the subsequent years this led to the cloning and identification of wing pattern genes such as optix - a large collaborative effort involving many researchers from across the community. Currently my group works on many aspects of Heliconius evolutionary biology, including evolutionary developmental biology of wing patterning, the genetic and behavioural basis for speciation, the sensory ecology of mimicry and analysis of the Heliconius melpomene genome. For more details see my lab homepage.  Recent publications [zotpress author="Jiggins" style="apa" sortby="date" order=desc limit="5"]

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