Seasonal variation in wing size and shape of Drosophila melanogaster reveals rapid adaptation to environmental changes. 2022

Banu Şebnem Önder, and Cansu Fidan Aksoy
Genetic Variation and Adaptation Laboratory, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. bdalgic@hacettepe.edu.tr.

Populations in seasonal fluctuating environments receive multiple environmental cues and must deal with this heterogenic environment to survive and reproduce. An enlarged literature shows that this situation can be resolved through rapid adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster populations. Long-term monitoring of a population in its natural habitat and quantitative measurement of its responses to seasonal environmental changes are important for understanding the adaptive response of D. melanogaster to temporal variable selection. Here, we use inbred lines of a D. melanogaster population collected at monthly intervals between May to October over a temporal scale spanning three consecutive years to understand the variation in wing size and wing shape over these timepoints. The wing size and shape of this population changed significantly between months and a seasonal cycle of this traits is repeated for three years. Our results suggest that the effects of environmental variables that generated variation in body size between populations such as latitudinal clines, are a selective pressure in a different manner in terms of seasonal variation. Temperature related variable have a significant nonlinear relation to this fluctuating pattern in size and shape, whereas precipitation and humidity have a sex-specific effect which is more significant in males.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008297 Male Males
D002980 Climate The longterm manifestations of WEATHER. (McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 6th ed) Climates
D004331 Drosophila melanogaster A species of fruit fly frequently used in genetics because of the large size of its chromosomes. D. melanogaster,Drosophila melanogasters,melanogaster, Drosophila
D005260 Female Females
D000064 Acclimatization Adaptation to a new environment or to a change in the old. Acclimation
D000818 Animals Unicellular or multicellular, heterotrophic organisms, that have sensation and the power of voluntary movement. Under the older five kingdom paradigm, Animalia was one of the kingdoms. Under the modern three domain model, Animalia represents one of the many groups in the domain EUKARYOTA. Animal,Metazoa,Animalia
D012621 Seasons Divisions of the year according to some regularly recurrent phenomena usually astronomical or climatic. (From McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 6th ed) Seasonal Variation,Season,Seasonal Variations,Variation, Seasonal,Variations, Seasonal
D014921 Wings, Animal Movable feathered or membranous paired appendages by means of which certain animals such as birds, bats, or insects are able to fly. Animal Wing,Animal Wings,Wing, Animal

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