Phenotypic plasticity in colonizing populations of Drosophila subobscura

Abstract

The phenotypic plasticity of some quantitative traits of two colonizing populations of Drosophila subobscura (Davis and Eureka, California) was studied. Temperature effects and the effect of rearing in the laboratory were studied. Laboratory rearing during four generations at 18ºC significantly increased the wing and tibial length. This increase was similar to that obtained when the flies were reared at 13ºC during two generations.The low temperature environment can be considered more stressful for females than for males, as shown by the increase of phenotypic variance. The two populations analyzed had great phenotypic plasticity in spite of the genetic bottleneck during the colonization event. Our study shows that keeping flies for a relatively short time in the laboratory significantly changes some quantitative traits, emphasizing the need to analyze flies immediately after collecting them in order to obtain reliable estimates for the analysis of these traits in natural populations.

Colonization of America by Drosophila Subobscura: Spatial and Temporal Lethal-gene Allelism

“…This colonization has been analyzed using both ecological and genetic approaches. Thus, the chromosomal polymorphism (PREVOSTI et al 1985, the allozyme polymorphism (PREVOSTI et al 1983;BALANYA et al 1994), the effect of inbreeding (PEGUEROLES et al 1996), the quantitative traits (PEGUEROLES et al 1995(PEGUEROLES et al , 1999HUEY et al 2000), the recombination between inversions (MESTRES et al 1998), the mtDNA (LATORRE et al 1986;ROZAS et al 1990), nuclear DNA variation (ROZAS andAGUADE 1991) and the microsatellites (NOOR et al 2000) have been studied. Finally, the lethal genes have been also analyzed in an attempt to understand different questions of the colonization.…”

A cytological study of the O5 chromosomal inversion of Drosophila subobscura (Diptera, Drosophilidae)

“…In North America the species is spread along the West Coast (Prevosti et al, 1987;1989). This phenomenon of colonization has been studied at different genetic levels: the chromosomal polymorphism (Prevosti et al, 1985;1988;, the allozyme polymorphism (Prevosti et al, 1983;Balanyà et al, 1994), the lethal genes (Mestres et al, 1990;Solé et al, 2000), the polygenes for quantitative traits (Pegueroles et al, 1995;1999;Huey et al, 2000), the mtDNA (Latorre et al, 1986;Rozas et al, 1990), the genomic DNA variation (Rozas and Aguadé, 1991) and the effect of inbreeding (Pegueroles et al, 1996).…”