scholarly journals A Drosophila melanogaster mitotype may have an adaptive meaning

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 370-374
Author(s):  
D. V. Petrovskii ◽  
L. P. Zakharenko

Several different mitochondrial clades have been found in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Most often, the difference is in single nucleotide substitutions, some of which are conservative. Some clades are rare, and others dominate. It has been reported that clade III dominates over clades V and VI in seven populations of D. melanogaster. We compared D. melanogaster strains with different mitotypes by locomotor activity (using TriKinetics Drosophila Activity Monitor), energy expenditure (by indirect calorimetry, based on measuring oxygen consumption) and life span (under extreme conditions at 29 °C). The nuclear genomes of these strains were aligned for several generations by backcrosses. According to our data, individuals with the mitotype from clade III had a higher level of locomotor activity and longer life span. In terms of energy expenditure, the strains studied did not differ. However, the same level of energy expenditure may be differently distributed between the state of activity and the state of rest or sleep. If the energy expenditure during the sleep in flies with different locomotor activity is the same, then an individual with the same overall energy expenditure can move a greater distance or be active longer. This can be interpreted as an advantage of the strain with the mitotype from clade III compared to the other two mitotypes studied. If individuals have different energy expenditure values at rest, the strains with lower energy expenditure at rest spend less energy during forced inactivity. In this case, the mitotype from clade III should also be advantageous. What nucleotide substitutions in the mitotype from clade III can provide an adaptive advantage is not clear yet. We assume that individuals with widespread clade М(III) may have adaptive advantages compared to other mitotypes due to their greater locomotor activity even with the same energy expenditure. Further studies are required, for mitotypes are polymorphic for single nucleotide polymorphism not only between but also within the clades.

Genetics ◽  
1982 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300
Author(s):  
Terumi Mukai ◽  
Sadao I Chigusa ◽  
Shin-Ichi Kusakabe

ABSTRACT Developmental homeostasis of relative viability was examined for homozygotes and heterozygotes using second chromosomes from two populations of Drosophila melanogaster. One was a chromosome population in which spontaneous mutations were allowed to accumulate since it was begun with a single near-normal second chromosome. The second was a natural population approximately at equilibrium. For the estimation of relative viability, the Cy method was employed (Wallace 1956), and environmental variance between simultaneously replicated cultures was used as the index of developmental homeostasis. A new method was used in the estimation of sampling variance for relative viability that was employed for the calculation of environmental variance (error variance between simultaneously replicated cultures — sampling variance). The following findings were obtained.: (1) The difference in environmental variance between homozygotes and heterozygotes could not be seen when a chromosome population with variation due to new mutations was tested. (2) When a chromosome group isolated from an approximate equilibrium population was examined, heterozygotes manifested a smaller environmental variance than the homozygotes if their relative viabilities were approximately the same. (3) There was a slight negative correlation between viability and environmental variance, although opposite results were found when the viabilities of individuals were high, especially when overdominance (coupling overdominance, Mukai 1969 a, b) was manifest. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that developmental homeostasis was a product of natural selection, and its mechanism was discussed.


2012 ◽  
Vol 03 (07) ◽  
pp. 1037-1040 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. V. Navrotskaya ◽  
G. Oxenkrug ◽  
L. I. Vorobyova ◽  
P. Summergrad

Genome ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 618-625 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aparup Das ◽  
B. N. Singh

To study the genetic differentiation and inversion clines in Indian natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster, 14 natural populations (6 from the north and 8 from the south) were screened for chromosome inversions. The chromosomal analysis revealed the presence of 23 paracentric inversions, which include 4 common cosmopolitan, 4 rare cosmopolitan, 2 recurrent endemic, and 13 unique endemic (new inversions detected for the first time) inversions. The difference in karyotype frequencies between populations from the north and south were highly significant and the level of inversion heterozygosity was higher in populations from the south. Statistically significant negative correlations were found between each of the four common cosmopolitan inversions and latitude. These findings are in accord with results from other worldwide geographic regions and show that Indian populations of D. melanogaster have undergone considerable genetic differentiation at the level of inversion polymorphism.Key words: Drosophila melanogaster, Indian natural populations, chromosome inversions, genetic differentiation, north–south clines.


1970 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 594-600 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. L. Hartl

A population of Drosophila melanogaster in Madison, Wisconsin, has been screened for suppressors of segregation distorter (SD), an autosomal meiotic drive element found in the same population. Three kinds of suppressors were tested for: (1) Y-linked suppressors, none were found, (2) X-linked suppressors, whose frequency was found to be 85%, and (3) autosomal dominant suppressors, which occur in 45% of autosome complements.The frequency of X-linked suppressors is comparable to that found in a Japanese population; autosomal suppressors are much more frequent in Madison than in Japan (Katoaka, 1967). The similarity in the frequency of sex-linked suppressors may result from the meiotic drive shown by the suppressor-X itself; the difference in the frequency of autosomal dominant suppressors is possibly related to a higher frequency of SD itself in the Madison population.


2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosalind Arden ◽  
Nicole Harlaar ◽  
Robert Plomin

Abstract. An association between intelligence at age 7 and a set of five single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) has been identified and replicated. We used this composite SNP set to investigate whether the associations differ between boys and girls for general cognitive ability at ages 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, and 10 years. In a longitudinal community sample of British twins aged 2-10 (n > 4,000 individuals), we found that the SNP set is more strongly associated with intelligence in males than in females at ages 7, 9, and 10 and the difference is significant at 10. If this finding replicates in other studies, these results will constitute the first evidence of the same autosomal genes acting differently on intelligence in the two sexes.


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