IBBEA   24401
INSTITUTO DE BIODIVERSIDAD Y BIOLOGIA EXPERIMENTAL Y APLICADA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
congresos y reuniones científicas
Título:
Genetic variation for tolerance to high temperatures and its possible role in climatic adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster
Autor/es:
ROLANDI, C.; SCHILMAN, P.E.; MENSCH, J.; LIGHTON, J.R.B.
Reunión:
Simposio; 7th International Symposium on the Environmental Physiology of Ectotherms and Plants (ISEPEP 2017); 2017
Resumen:
Therange of thermal tolerance is one of the main physiological trait influencinggeographic distribution of the species. Climate change projections predict increasesin average and extreme temperatures over the coming decades; hence the abilityof living beings to resist these changes will depend onphysiological and adaptive responses. Short-term responses may involve plasticmodifications in the range of thermo-tolerance. On a longer time scaleevolutionary changes will occur on the basis of individual inheritabledifferences of this type of response. In this work, we will identify thegenetic basis of tolerance to high temperatures in the fly Drosophila melanogaster and if this species presents geneticvariability that allows expansion of its upper thermo-tolerance limit throughprocesses of climatic adaptation. To do so, we used adult flies derived from anatural population belonging to the DrosophilaGenetic Reference Panel for which their genomes have been sequenced. Wecharacterized the phenotypic variation of the upper thermal limit in 37 linesby measuring knock down temperature (i.e.,critical thermal maximum (CTmax)) by exposing flies to a ramp of increasingtemperature (0.25° C min-1). Fourteen percent (14%) of the variationin CTmax is explained by the genetic variation across lines, without asignificant sexual dimorphism. Through a genome-wide association study 14regions of the genome associated to the CTmax were identified, correspondingmostly to regulatory regions. This suggests that their effect on CTmax could bemediated by changes in gene expression.Insummary, this work shows that there is genetic variation for heat knock-downtolerance (CTmax) in this natural population and that several identified genespresent alleles that would allow the expansion of the upper limit of thermo-tolerancethrough climatic adaptation processes. Acknowledgements: Sable Systems International (SSI)for the loan of the equipment used in this study