Quantitative genetics of postponed aging in Drosophila melanogaster. I. Analysis of outbred populations.

Abstract Selection has been used to create replicated outbred stocks of Drosophila melanogaster with increased longevity, increased later fecundity, and increased levels of physiological performance at later ages. The present study analyzed the quantitative transmission patterns of such stocks, employing extensive replication in numbers of stocks, individuals, and assayed characters. The populations used derived from five lines with postponed aging and five control lines, all created in 1980 from the same founding base population. The following characters were studied: early 24-hr fecundity, early ovary weight, early female starvation resistance, early male starvation resistance, female longevity and male longevity. Numerous crosses were performed to test for non-Mendelian inheritance, average dominance, maternal effects, sex-linkage and between-line heterogeneity. There was only slight evidence for any of these phenomena arising reproducibly in the characters studied. These findings suggest the value of this set of stocks for studies of the physiological basis of postponed aging.

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Quantitative genetics of postponed aging in Drosophila melanogaster. II. Analysis of selected lines.

Genetics ◽

10.1093/genetics/127.4.729 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 127 (4) ◽

pp. 729-737

Author(s):

E W Hutchinson ◽

A J Shaw ◽

M R Rose

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Maternal Effects ◽

Genetic Variance ◽

Additive Genetic Variance ◽

Starvation Resistance ◽

Selected Lines ◽

Quantitative Genetic ◽

Degree Of Differentiation ◽

Postponed Aging ◽

Allelic Differentiation

Abstract Quantitative genetic analyses of Drosophila melanogaster stocks with postponed aging have suffered from the problem of a lack of certainty concerning patterns of allelic differentiation. The present experiments were designed to alleviate this difficulty by selecting for enhanced levels of characters known to be related to postponed aging. Selection successfully increased the degree of differentiation of postponed aging stocks with respect to starvation resistance and fecundity, but persistent additive genetic variance suggested that selection did not result in fixation of alleles. The artificially selected stocks were subjected to crosses to test for patterns of dominance and maternal effects. There was little evidence for these effects in the inheritance of the characters underlying postponed aging, even with the increased differentiation of the selected stocks.

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Quantitative Genetics of Postponed Aging in Drosophila melanogaster. I. Analysis of Outbred Populations

Methuselah Flies ◽

10.1142/9789812567222_0003 ◽

2004 ◽

pp. 17-25

Author(s):

Edward W. Hutchinson ◽

Michael R. Rose

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Quantitative Genetics ◽

Outbred Populations ◽

Postponed Aging

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Starvation resistance in Drosophila melanogaster: testing for a possible 'cannibalism' bias

Functional Ecology ◽

10.1111/j.0269-8463.2004.00915.x ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 18 (6) ◽

pp. 952-954 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

R. B. HUEY ◽

J. SUESS ◽

H. HAMILTON ◽

G. W. GILCHRIST

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Starvation Resistance

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Complex Trade-Offs and the Evolution of Starvation Resistance in Drosophila melanogaster

Evolution ◽

10.2307/2410848 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 753 ◽

Cited By ~ 94

Author(s):

Adam K. Chippindale ◽

Terence J. F. Chu ◽

Michael R. Rose

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Starvation Resistance ◽

Trade Offs

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A quantitative genetic study of starvation resistance at different geographic scales in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster

Genetics Research ◽

10.1017/s0016672310000327 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 92 (4) ◽

pp. 253-259 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

JULIETA GOENAGA ◽

JUAN JOSÉ FANARA ◽

ESTEBAN HASSON

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Genetic Correlations ◽

Natural Populations ◽

Food Shortage ◽

Population Variation ◽

Phenotypic Variance ◽

Starvation Resistance ◽

Natural Genetic Variation ◽

Quantitative Genetic ◽

Variation Explained

SummaryFood shortage is a stress factor that commonly affects organisms in nature. Resistance to food shortage or starvation resistance (SR) is a complex quantitative trait with direct implications on fitness. However, surveys of natural genetic variation in SR at different geographic scales are scarce. Here, we have measured variation in SR in sets of lines derived from nine natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster collected in western Argentina. Our study shows that within population variation explained a larger proportion of overall phenotypic variance (80%) than among populations (7·2%). We also noticed that an important fraction of variation was sex-specific. Overall females were more resistant to starvation than males; however, the magnitude of the sexual dimorphism (SD) in SR varied among lines and explained a significant fraction of phenotypic variance in all populations. Estimates of cross-sex genetic correlations suggest that the genetic architecture of SR is only partially shared between sexes in the populations examined, thus, facilitating further evolution of the SD.

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Phenotypic coupling of sleep and starvation resistance evolves in D. melanogaster

BMC Evolutionary Biology ◽

10.1186/s12862-020-01691-8 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Didem P. Sarikaya ◽

Julie Cridland ◽

Adam Tarakji ◽

Hayley Sheehy ◽

Sophia Davis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Drosophila Melanogaster ◽

Population Level ◽

Adaptive Mechanism ◽

Starvation Resistance ◽

Plastic Response ◽

Metabolic Phenotypes ◽

Percent Change ◽

Carbohydrate Levels ◽

Complex Relationships ◽

Function Of Sleep

Abstract Background One hypothesis for the function of sleep is that it serves as a mechanism to conserve energy. Recent studies have suggested that increased sleep can be an adaptive mechanism to improve survival under food deprivation in Drosophila melanogaster. To test the generality of this hypothesis, we compared sleep and its plastic response to starvation in a temperate and tropical population of Drosophila melanogaster. Results We found that flies from the temperate population were more starvation resistant, and hypothesized that they would engage in behaviors that are considered to conserve energy, including increased sleep and reduced movement. Surprisingly, temperate flies slept less and moved more when they were awake compared to tropical flies, both under fed and starved conditions, therefore sleep did not correlate with population-level differences in starvation resistance. In contrast, total sleep and percent change in sleep when starved were strongly positively correlated with starvation resistance within the tropical population, but not within the temperate population. Thus, we observe unexpectedly complex relationships between starvation and sleep that vary both within and across populations. These observations falsify the simple hypothesis of a straightforward relationship between sleep and energy conservation. We also tested the hypothesis that starvation is correlated with metabolic phenotypes by investigating stored lipid and carbohydrate levels, and found that stored metabolites partially contributed towards variation starvation resistance. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that the function of sleep under starvation can rapidly evolve on short timescales and raise new questions about the physiological correlates of sleep and the extent to which variation in sleep is shaped by natural selection.

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