Colour polymorphism associated with a gene duplication in male wood tiger moths

Colour is often used as an aposematic warning signal, with predator learning expected to lead to a single colour pattern within a population. However, there are many puzzling cases where aposematic signals are also polymorphic. The wood tiger moth, Arctia plantaginis, uses bright hindwing colours as a signal of unpalatability, and males have discrete colour morphs which vary in frequency geographically. In Finland, both white and yellow morphs can be found, and these colour morphs also differ in behavioural and life-history traits. Complex polymorphisms such as these are often explained by supergenes. Here, we show that male colour is linked to an extra copy of a yellow family gene that is only present in the white morphs. This white-specific duplication, which we name valkea, is highly upregulated during wing development, and could act to reduce recombination, thus potentially representing a supergene. We also characterise the pigments responsible for yellow, white and black colouration, showing that yellow is partly produced by pheomelanins, while black is dopamine-derived eumelanin. The yellow family genes have been linked to melanin synthesis and behavioural traits in other insect species. Our results add to only a few examples of seemingly paradoxical and complex polymorphisms which are associated with single genes.