Temperature and genotypic effects on life history and fluctuating asymmetry in a field strain of Culex pipiens

Abstract

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) has been proposed as a tool to measure levels of stress experienced by populations of organisms during development. To be of value as a biomarker to highlight conditions at particular sites, it is important that variation in FA is due to environmental (eg pollution) variation and not genetic variation among populations and families, in other words heritability for FA should be very close to zero. A full-sib design was set up in which families of Culex pipiens mosquitoes collected from the field were reared at three different developmental temperatures. The effects of temperature and family on developmental rate, egg to adult survival and four wing morphological measures were assessed. There was both a temperature and a family effect on development rate and survival. Temperature affected all four wing traits, but an influence of family was

Size polymorphism and fluctuating asymmetry of Artemia (Branchiopoda: Anostraca) populations from the Crimea

“…The found The existence of significant levels of genetic variation for FA is the most contentious issue of developmental stability studies (Mpho et al, 2002). Some studies have detected the significant heritable variations for FA (Whitlock, 1996;Dongen, 2006), but others -non-significant heritability of FA estimates (Bjorksten et al, 2000;Mpho et al, 2002). There is little evidence for specific genes that govern FA per se; numerous studies show that FA levels in various characters are influenced by dominance and especially epistatic interactions among genes (Leamy and Klingenberg, 2005).…”

“…All this, as well as our study of body length and two bilateral traits, are arguments that parthenogenetic populations in Crimean lakes have differences in genetic architecture; this may cause differences in FA manifestation. The found The existence of significant levels of genetic variation for FA is the most contentious issue of developmental stability studies (Mpho et al, 2002). Some studies have detected the significant heritable variations for FA (Whitlock, 1996;Dongen, 2006), but others -non-significant heritability of FA estimates (Bjorksten et al, 2000;Mpho et al, 2002).…”

Transgenic Pesticidal Crops and the Environment: The Case of Bt Maize and Natural Enemies

“…FA refers to random deviations from symmetry of otherwise bilaterally symmetric traits; it occurs when an individual is unable to undergo identical development on both sides of a bilaterally symmetrical trait (Liu et al, 2005c). Environmental stress, including extreme temperatures (Mpho et al, 2002;Sciulli et al, 1979), pesticides (Hoffmann & Parsons, 1990), and qualitative and/or quantitative food deficiency (Liu et al, 2005c;Parsons, 1990) may cause FA in morphological traits during development. For example, the FA value of the third segment of antenna in aphids was significantly higher on Bt cotton compared to control cotton (Liu et al, 2005c).…”

Alterações reprodutivas causadas pela infecção por Wolbachia pipientis em Culex quinquefasciatus.

“…Porém, o comprimento e o tamanho da asa têm sido utilizados para estimar o tamanho do mosquito (Jirakanjanakit et al, 2007;Lehmann et al, 2006;Morales Vargas et al, 2010). Além disso, estudos mostraram que perturbações ambientais podem induzir alterações fisiológicas no mosquito como a assimetria bilateral de forma e tamanho alar (Mpho et al, 2001(Mpho et al, , 2002.…”

“…Outro fato importante de elucidar é que, aparentemente, Wolbachia está causando distúrbios não somente reprodutivos, já que o elevado grau de assimetria alar encontrado nos indivíduos infectados (Tabela 8), provavelmente está relacionado a perturbações fisiológicas (Mpho et al, 2001(Mpho et al, , 2002.…”