The X and Z chromosomes have unique characteristics that lead to unique evolutionary consequences. Lepidopterans have a well-known, disproportionately large-Z effect for behavioral and morphological traits that distinguish closely related species. A potential explanation for the Large-X effect is the faster evolution of the sex chromosome (Faster-X evolution). We use whole genome re-sequencing of Heliconius erato races and of the incipient species H. himera to test for faster-Z evolution between hybridizing populations at different reproductive isolation levels, by calculating divergence and nucleotide diversity. We show evidence for Faster-Z evolution in Heliconius butterflies at the early stages of speciation and along the speciation continuum. Evidence of higher divergence and lower nucleotide diversity suggests not only selection but also nonaptive process, like demographic changes, may be driving faster-Z evolution, especially in the incipient species.

According to the "faster-X effect", X-linked genes and Z-linked genes evolve more quickly than autosomal genes. This theory is one of the currently intensively studied topics in evolutionary research. However, performing high quality tests is difficult because the results are influenced by several factors - the effective size of the population of the gonosome, sexual selection, the dependency of mutation rate and selection on sex, and the mechanism of dosage compensation. Conservation of genes and possible differences between rates of evolution of autosomes also play a role and not all studies take this fact into account. This study shows some of the difficulties of paired comparisons of dN/dS ratios traditionally used to test faster-X or faster-Z effects and introduces the basis of a new method of comparison of the rate of evolution (CREC) based on relative genetic distances between three species. The CREC method reduces the influence of conservation of genes on results and is more applicable for testing faster-X or faster Z effects in such species where two species without homologic gonosomes can be found for comparison. In means of the development of this method, the faster-Z effect was tested on a dataset of 9 autosomal and 13 Z-linked genes in the six-striped long-tailed lizard (Takydromus...