Parental age influences developmental stability of the progeny in Drosophila

COLINES, B; CABRERA, N; HASSON, E; CARREIRA, V; FRANKEL, N

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. SERIES B: BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES.

ROYAL SOC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2015 vol. 282

0962-8452

The stochastic nature of biochemical processes is a source of variability that influences developmental stability. Development instability (DI) is often estimated through fluctuating asymmetry (FA), a parameter that deals with within-individual variation in bilateral structures. A relevant goal is to shed light on how environment, physiology and genotype relate to DI, thus providing a more comprehensive view of organismal development. Using Drosophila melanogaster isogenic lines we investigated the effect of parental age, parental diet and offspring heterozygosity on DI. In this work we have uncovered a clear relationship between parental age and offspring asymmetry. We show that asymmetry of the progeny increases concomitantly with parental age. Moreover, we demonstrate that enriching the diet of parents mitigates the effect of age on offspring symmetry. We show as well that increasing the heterozygosity of the progeny eliminates the effect of parental age on offspring symmetry. Taken together, our results suggest that diet, genotype and age of the parents interact to determine offspring DI in wild populations. These findings provide an avenue to understand the mechanisms underlying DI.