That Fruit Fly Experiment...

[Bushido216]

Where they mead bread flies and meat flies? Ya know, where they had fruit flies who were only fed bread and what not?

Can someone give me some information about that? I'm trying to google it, but it's not working.

 

[Bushido216]

Somebody... anybody...?

 

[lucaspa]

Where they mead bread flies and meat flies? Ya know, where they had fruit flies who were only fed bread and what not?

Can someone give me some information about that? I'm trying to google it, but it's not working.

It's 1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos. A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980.

To the best of my knowledge, it's not on the web. Let me get my copy and then give you some of the details.

 

[Bushido216]

Please post that as soon as you can, I was in the middle of writing my first response post on these forums when I realized I had on idea who the hell did it.

 

[lucaspa]

OK.
METHODS
They captured 600 parents from a natural population in Cephalonia, Greece The population was expanded in the lab and then split into separate populations.

1C was kept at 18 degrees C and 43% humidity for the first two years and then at 14 degrees C and 43% humidity for 3 years.
1D was kept at 25 degrees C and 90% humidity all 5 years.

These populations were fed cornmeal-sugar-agar. 1D is thus the control population.


2C was given bread-agar and 2D given meat agar. Both kept at 25 degrees C and 90% humidity.

Each population started at 300 breeding pairs but was kept at about 1,100 individuals.

At the end of 5 years 12 virgin males and females from each population were put in mating chambers and mating observered. Fitness measurements were number of eggs, number hatched, F1 and F2 fitness to live in the various environments. Nine enzymes controlled by single genes were studied by starch gel electrophoresis. These are common metabolic enzymes and I can give the names if required.

RESULTS

Flies exhibited a tendency to mate with only those flies of the same population. The exception was 1D, which mated with fresh caught flies from the wild. The tendency was not due to chance. Thus, flies from a common gene pool but kept in different environments show significant sexual isolation. (Mate preference is one of the isolating mechanisms of new species.)

There was significan reduction in F1 hybrid sterility. That is, taking F1 hybrids from 1C and 1D and breeding them with either 1C or 1D shows a high rate of sterility. The F1 hybrids can't get pregnant or cause a female to get pregnant. When F1 and F2 hybrids are placed in the special environments, their viability drops to only 85% of that of the parents in that environment. That is, the hybrids can't survive as well.

Four of the nine genes were the same in all populations. The other showed a genetic difference of 3% between 1C and 2C, 1D and 2C, 1C and 2D, 2.5% between 1C and 1D.

 

[Bushido216]

Thankyou.

I posted my little blurb on another thread entitled "An Example of Error on YEC Headquarters"