Genetic trade-off between early fecundity and longevity in Bactrocera Cucurbitae (Diptera: Tephritidae)

Abstract

The response to selection on age at reproduction was measured to test for a genetic trade-off between early fecundity and longevity in the melon fly Bactrocera cucurbitae (Coquillett). Three replicate lines were selected for propagation by breeding from young (Y-lines) and old (O-lines) adults, respectively. Selection was continued for 24 and 9 generations for Y-and O-lines, respectively. Females from O-lines lived longer than Y-line females as an indirect response to selection, indicating that longevity is a trait under genetic control. Females from Y-lines had higher fecundity early in the lifespan, a shorter preoviposition period, and a shorter prepeak fecundity period than females from O-lines. However, total fecundity did not differ between lines from the two selection regimes. These results suggest the existence of a genetic trade-off between early fecundity and longevity in the population examined, which may be controlled by pleiotropy. The larval period of the O-lines was longer than that of the Y-lines, whereas there were no significant effects of selection regime on egg hatchability or preadult survival rate. The trade-off relationship between early fecundity and longevity is discussed in relation to mass production of the melon fly for the sterile insect technique programme.

Negative phenotypic and genetic associations between copulation duration and longevity in male seed beetles

“…Our results suggest that copulation itself can be costly, as suggested for other traits like ejaculate and sperm size (Dewsbury, 1982;Pitnick et al, 1995;Hosken, 2001). Other examples of genetic trade-offs have usually focused on females, but as with Hunt et al (2006) and our study, published work typically finds negative genetic correlations between reproductive effort (for example, fecundity) and longevity (for example, Zwaan et al, 1995;Miyatake, 1997).…”

Correlated changes in life history traits in response to selection for faster pre-adult development in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster

“…In insects, circadian clocks, which rhythmically regulate most behavioural and metabolic processes, have been implicated in the regulation of life history traits such as pre-adult development time (Kyriacou et al, 1990;Paranjpe et al, 2005) and adult lifespan (Miyatake, 1997a;Klarsfeld and Rouyer, 1998). Correlation between development time and circadian clocks was also reported in laboratory selection studies on melon flies (Miyatake, 1997b;Shimizu et al, 1997) and fruit flies (Kumar et al, 2006;Takahashi et al, 2013;Yadav and Sharma, 2013a).…”

“…Populations selected for slower development and delayed reproduction showed increased pre-adult development time (Chippindale et al, 1994) and extended adult lifespan (Partridge and Fowler, 1992;Djawdan et al, 1996). While a study on the butterfly Bicyclus anynana reported a negative correlation between pre-adult development time and adult lifespan (Pijpe et al, 2006), others have reported positive [melon flies, Bactrocera cucurbitae (Miyatake, 1997a); D. melanogaster (Chippindale et al, 2004)] or no correlation [D. melanogaster (Zwaan et al, 1991)]. This suggests that correlation between pre-adult development and adult fitness traits depends on the selection protocol and/or the genetic architecture of the founder populations.…”

“…For instance, studies on selection for faster pre-adult development (Chippindale et al, 1994;Chippindale et al, 1997;Prasad et al, 2000) were carried out in D. melanogaster under rhythm-abolishing laboratory conditions of constant light (LL) by imposing additional selection pressure on the age of reproduction [early life (Prasad et al, 2000) or very early (Chippindale et al, 1994;Chippindale et al, 1997)]. Such studies were also carried out under different LD cycles in the laboratory (Miyatake, 1997a;Miyatake, 1997b;Shimizu et al, 1997) or under natural conditions (Pijpe et al, 2006) on several insect species, such as melon flies and the butterfly B. anynana. Therefore, a comprehensive study is required that critically examines circadian clocks and a variety of fitness components in large outbred populations, for a better understanding of the role of circadian clocks in the regulation of life history traits.…”

The clock gene cryptochrome of Bactrocera cucurbitae (Diptera: Tephritidae) in strains with different mating times

“…B. cucurbitae strains were established by selecting for S and L development time from a massreared stock of B. cucurbitae (Mass) maintained at the Okinawa Prefectural Plant Protection Center, Okinawa, Japan (for a detailed description of the protocol see Miyatake, 1995;Miyatake and Shimizu, 1999). Two replicate 'young' and 'old' strains (Y1, Y2, O1 and O2) were also established from the base population by selecting for young and old age at reproduction (for a detailed description of the protocol see Miyatake, 1997bMiyatake, , 2002a.…”