Fig. 5: The correlates of chromosome length and sequence features across Lepidoptera.
From: Comparative genomics reveals the dynamics of chromosome evolution in Lepidoptera
a–c, Proportional chromosome length against sequence features: repetitive element content (a); synteny, defined as the proportion of orthologues that are adjacent in both the reference species Melitaea cinxia and the given species (b); proportion of chromosomal gene content that is made up of orthologues that are single copy and present across Lepidoptera (c). Each line is coloured green if the correlation with proportional length was significant (Spearman’s rank, P < 0.05) or orange if it was non-significant (Supplementary Table 8). Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients (R) and P values were obtained by two-sided Spearman’s correlation test. Only autosomes were included in the correlation analysis. Autosomes were filtered to only retain those that corresponded to intact Merian elements (that had not undergone fusion or fission). Only species with at least ten autosomes after filtering were analysed and only superfamilies represented by at least five species are shown. d,e, Proportional chromosome length against repetitive element content for Agrochola circellaris (d), which has a recent fusion and for Aphantopus hyperantus (e), which has an older fusion. f, The difference between the average repeat density of a given Merian element and its current repeat density in the context of a fused chromosome is shown, where small Merian elements are M25, M29, M30 and M31. The box plots show the median (centre line) and the first and third quartiles (Q1 and Q3; box limits) and the whiskers extend to the last point within 1.5 times the interquartile range below and above Q1 and Q3 respectively. Observations that fall outside Q1 and Q3 are shown as outliers. n = 180 independent pairwise fusions examined. g,h, Proportional chromosome length against repetitive sequence content is shown for a set of Pierini species plus the sister species Anthocharis cardamines (g) and for species in genus Lysandra and the sister species Polyommatus icarus (h). Source data for this figure can be found in Supplementary Tables 10 and 8 and in the Source data.
