Contrasting levels of genotype by environment interaction for life history and morphological traits in invasive populations of Zaprionus indianus (Diptera: Drosophilidae)

IMBERTI, M; ORTIZ, V; LAVAGNINO, N; FANARA, JJ

INSECT SCIENCE

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Año: 2019

1672-9609

It has been demonstrated that phenotypic plasticity and genotype by environment interactionare important for coping with new and heterogeneous environments during invasions.Zaprionus indianus Gupta (Diptera: Drosophilidae) is an Afrotropical invasive fly speciesintroduced to the South American continent in 1999. This species is generalist andpolyphagous, since it develops and feeds in several different fruit species. Thesecharacteristics of Z. indianus suggest that phenotypic plasticity and genotype by environmentinteraction may be important in this species invasion process. In this sense, our aim was toinvestigate the role of genetic variation for phenotypic plasticity (genotype by environmentinteraction) in Z. indianus invasion of the South American continent. Specifically, wequantified quantitative genetic variation and genotype by environment interactions ofmorphological and life history traits in different developmental environments, i.e. host fruits.This was done in different populations in the invasive range of Z. indianus in Argentina.Results showed that Z. indianus populations have considerable amounts of quantitativegenetic variation. Also, genotype by environment interactions was detected for the differenttraits analyzed in response to the different developmental environments. Interestingly, theamounts and patterns of these parameters differed between populations. We interpreted theseresults as the existence of differences in evolutionary potential between populations that havean important role in the short- and long-term success of the Z. indianus invasion process.