ABSTRACT
The domesticated silkworm, Bombyx mori, has long served as a model for lepidopteran biology. Its relatively short, predictable life cycle, large size, and adaptation to mass rearing and laboratory culture, coupled with the high degree of fundamental knowledge needed for successful practice of sericulture, explains in part the silkworm’s use as a representative for Lepidoptera in basic research. It became an object of genetic studies early in the twentieth century (for accounts of the history of silkworm genetics and sericulture, see Eickbush 1995; Yasukochi, Fujii, and Goldsmith 2008), leading to the collection of many spontaneous mutations found in the course of mass rearing or introgressed from its nearest wild relative, Bombyx mandarina, which is present in mulberry elds in China, Japan, and Korea, and can still form partially fertile hybrids
Introduction: The Silkworm Model .................................................................................................25 Bombyx Cytogenetics .......................................................................................................................27 “Classical” Linkage Maps ................................................................................................................28 Molecular Linkage Maps .................................................................................................................28
