scholarly journals Selection for and against a canalized phenotype in Drosophila melanogaster

1967 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. S. Y. Young

Selection for and against the canalized phenotype in scutellar bristles was attempted in two selection lines and a randomly selected line was used as control. The selection lines were the Decanalization line (D) and the Canalization line (N). The D line was maintained by matings of scute males (scwbl) with three scutellars with wild-type females (scwbl/yw) with five bristles, in the N line scute males with four bristles were mated with wild-type females also with four bristles, while in the C line males and females of the above genotypes were selected at random. The lines were established from a sample of flies taken from a line selected for high scutellar numbers.After eighteen generations of selection the C line was characterized by a regression of mean bristle number without appreciable change in variance. Relative to the N line, the D population showed a lower proportion of flies having four scutellars, a higher variance in bristle numbers, and a higher proportion of four-bristle scute flies having abnormal patterns.Two alternative hypotheses were advanced to account for the results of this experiment. The first postulated a relative change in the widths of the four-bristle canalization zones in the selection lines, while the second suggested a relative change in frequencies of specific modifier genes for scutellars in scute and in wild-type genotypes of the lines. The evidence favours the latter hypothesis.

1968 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 721 ◽  
Author(s):  
BL Sheldon

The results of short runs of disruptive and high selection for scutellar bristles in wild-type Drosophila are explained in terms of the hypothesis that canalization at four bristles is due to regulation of the major gene in the developmental system (Rendel, Sheldon, and Finlay 1965). Selection response has probably been due to selection for modifier (minor) genes rather than for isoalleles of the major gene or weak regulator alleles. Some environmental effects on the character, short runs of selection for low bristle number or different bristle types, and effects of relaxing selection are also reported.


1960 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
JM Rendel ◽  
BL Sheldon

Selection for low variance of scutellar bristle number in scute flies resulted in canalization about a mean of two bristles. Selection for high variance appeared ineffective. The sensitivity of high selection lines to changes in temperature at which the flies were reared was much greater than the sensitivity of the low selection lines and the sensitivity of wild�type cultures.


1990 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 6805-6808 ◽  
Author(s):  
M A Caligo ◽  
W Armstrong ◽  
B J Rossiter ◽  
M Meuth

The pattern of mutations produced by a mutator gene (obtained during serial selection for amplification of the dihydrofolate reductase [dhfr] locus) shows a pronounced shift from that found in wild-type cells. The rate of certain types of base substitutions (particularly transitions) is dramatically increased, while gene rearrangements constitute a lower proportion of mutations. These data suggest a lower fidelity of the replication process in the mutator strain.


1986 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trudy F. C. Mackay

SummaryForty-one third chromosomes extracted from a natural population of Drosophila melanogaster were assessed for net fitness and for the quantitative characters viability, net fertility, female productivity, male weight, abdominal bristle number, and sternopleural bristle number. Net homozygous and heterozygous fitness of the third chromosomes was estimated by competition against a marked balancer third chromosome. Average fitness of the homozygous lines relative to wild-type heterozygotes was 0·13, indicating substantial inbreeding depression for net fitness. All significant correlations of quantitative characters with fitness and with each other were high and positive. Homozygous fitness is strongly correlated with net fertility, viability, and female productivity, moderately associated with male weight, and not significantly associated with bristle traits. The combination of metric traits which best predicts homozygous fitness is the simple multiple of viability and female productivity. Heterozygous fitness is not correlated with homozygous fitness; furthermore, the relative contribution of metric traits to fitness in a heterozygous population is likely to be different from that deduced from homozygous lines. These observations are consistent with a model of genetic variation for fitness in natural populations caused by segregation of rare deleterious recessive alleles.


1954 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. W. Kerr

DDT in odourless distillate was topically applied to individual males and females of the Rothamated wild type of Drosophila melanogaster Mg. The lines for the regression of mortality in probits on log. dosage of DDT for males and females, five days old, were parallel, and males were 1·86 times as susceptible as females. Susceptibility was high in young flies, but rapidly decreased with age, to a minimum at about five days, thereafter increasing rapidly in males and not significantly in females. The need for sexing and standardising age in flies used for toxicological investigations was thus demonstrated.Respiration rate in untreated flies was measured by a modified Barcroft method. In males it increased with age up to five days, and then decreased; in females it increased with age up to nine days. Variations with age in respiration rate and susceptibility to DDT were negatively correlated.


1985 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-105
Author(s):  
Aurora García-Dorado ◽  
Carlos López-Fanjul

SUMMARYAn experimental evaluation of Jódar & López-Fanjul's (1977) theoretical treatment of the optimum proportions to select when the numbers of males and females scored are unequal has been carried out for sternopleural bristle number in Drosophila melanogaster. Three different values of the sex-ratio (c) were considered (c = 1, 4 and 10) for the same total number of individuals scored per generation. For each c value two types of line were selected with proportions theoretically maximizing the response to be attained after 10 or 20 generations, respectively. Thus, there were six types of lines and each type was replicated sixfold. A good qualitative agreement was found between the observed and the expected rankings of the different types of selected lines at the designated generations.


1984 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 277
Author(s):  
BL Sheldon ◽  
M K Evans

Results are presented of 130-145 generations of selection for low scutellar bristle number in four lines of D. melanogaster derived directly from an Oregon-RC wild-type stock and in one derived from an Oregon-RC line selected for low sternital bristle number. The most rapid initial response and the lowest mean scutellar bristle number ultimately reached, just below 2 bristles, occurred in a line in which the response was due to a new recessive gene located at approximately 17�4 on the X chromosome. Three of the other four lines reached a plateau just above a mean of 2 bristles after different patterns of response. These plateaux reflected a new canalization or threshold phenomenon at 2 bristles in these lines. The remaining line reached a mean of about 2� 5 bristles after some 50 generations and remained at that level or slightly higher thereafter, but had no indication of canalization at 2 bristles. Two relaxed lines were derived from each selection line at different times and showed variable patterns of regression towards the base population level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (6) ◽  
pp. 2428-2432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Frighetto ◽  
Mauro A. Zordan ◽  
Umberto Castiello ◽  
Aram Megighian

The mechanism of action selection is a widely shared fundamental process required by animals to interact with the environment and adapt to it. A key step in this process is the filtering of the “distracting” sensory inputs that may disturb action selection. Because it has been suggested that, in principle, action selection may also be processed by shared circuits in vertebrate and invertebrates, we wondered whether invertebrates show the ability to filter out “distracting” stimuli during a goal-directed action, as seen in vertebrates. In this experiment, action selection was studied in wild-type Drosophila melanogaster by investigating their reaction to the abrupt appearance of a visual distractor during an ongoing locomotor action directed to a visual target. We found that when the distractor was present, flies tended to shift the original trajectory toward it, thus acknowledging its presence, but they did not fully commit to it, suggesting that an inhibition process took place to continue the unfolding of the planned goal-directed action. To some extent flies appeared to take into account and represent motorically the distractor, but they did not engage in a complete change of their initial motor program in favor of the distractor. These results provide interesting insights into the selection-for-action mechanism, in a context requiring action-centered attention, that might have appeared rather early in the course of evolution. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Action selection and maintenance of a goal-directed action require animals to ignore irrelevant “distracting” stimuli that might elicit alternative motor programs. In this study we observed, in Drosophila melanogaster, a top-down mechanism inhibiting the response toward salient stimuli, to accomplish a goal-directed action. These data highlight, for the first time in an invertebrate organism, that the action-based attention shown by higher organisms, such as humans and nonhuman primates, might have an ancestral origin.


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