Genetic basis of wing morphology in Drosophila melanogaster

CARREIRA, V.; MENSCH, J; FANARA, JJ

Stony Brook, New York, USA

Congreso; Evolution Conference 2006; 2006

A central issue in evolutionary biology is to understand the mechanisms that promote morphological evolution, such as those responsible for size and shape variation in nature. In this context, any approach aimed to investigate morphological variation should include the genetic and environmental factors causing intraspecific variation and interspecific divergence. Moreover, to understand the genetic architecture of any complex trait requires identifying the genes that contribute to the expression of the trait. Body size and shape are heritable traits that show genetic variability and correlate with several fitness components and multiple researches in natural and artificial populations of Drosophila have shown that the wing is a suitable model for such studies. However, despite the existence of a growing body of knowledge concerning morphological development, there are few studies addressed to identify genes affecting body size and shape expression. Therefore, our goal is to identify candidate genes that contribute to wing morphology expression in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster. Ourresults showed the existence of mutational variance among single P-element inserted lines for wing size and wing shape. Most of the lines showed differences for wing size and/or wing shape respect to the control in one or both sexes suggesting that the number of genes involved in the expression of these traits is really large. Nevertheless, genes affecting wing size and/or wing shape expression seem to depend extensively on the sex. Finally, the results suggest that the genetic architecture of wing size and shape is not the same since different genes seem to be involved in their expression.