In: Scientific Reports, 2020, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 2752
Organisms possess an endogenous molecular clock which enables them to adapt to environmental rhythms and to synchronize their metabolism and behavior accordingly. Circadian rhythms govern daily oscillations in numerous physiological processes, and the underlying molecular components have been extensively described from fruit flies to mammals. Drosophila larvae have relatively simple nervous...
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In: Genetics, 2020, vol. 214, no. 1, p. 3–48
Life-history traits or “fitness components”—such as age and size at maturity, fecundity and fertility, age-specific rates of survival, and life span—are the major phenotypic determinants of Darwinian fitness. Analyzing the evolution and genetics of these phenotypic targets of selection is central to our understanding of adaptation. Due to its simple and rapid life cycle, cosmopolitan...
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In: Current Opinion in Insect Science, 2019, vol. 36, p. 25–32
Vision is essential to maximize the efficiency of daily tasks such as feeding, avoiding predators or finding mating partners. An advantageous model is Drosophila melanogaster, since it offers tools that allow genetic and neuronal manipulation with high spatial and temporal resolution, which can be combined with behavioral, anatomical and physiological assays. Recent advances have expanded our...
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In: Environmental Microbiology, 2019, vol. 21, no. 9, p. 3259–3268
Environmental variation can have profound and direct effects on fitness, fecundity, and host–symbiont interactions. Replication rates of microbes within arthropod hosts, for example, are correlated with incubation temperature but less is known about the influence of host–symbiont dynamics on environmental preference. Hence, we conducted thermal preference (Tp) assays and tested if...
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In: Journal of Biosciences, 2014, vol. 39, no. 4, p. 595-603
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In: Molecular Ecology, 2019, vol. 28, no. 6, p. 1263–1282
Chromosomal inversions, structural mutations that reverse a segment of a chromosome, cause suppression of recombination in the heterozygous state. Several studies have shown that inversion polymorphisms can form clines or fluctuate predictably in frequency over seasonal time spans. These observations prompted the hypothesis that chromosomal rearrangements might be subject to spatially and/or ...
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In: PLoS ONE, 2010, vol. 5, no. 8, p. 1-5
Background: The Drosophila C virus (DCV) is a common and well-studied Drosophila pathogen. Although natural infections are known from Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans, and artificial infections have been reported from several. Drosophila species and other insects, it remains unclear to date whether DCV infections also occur naturally in other Drosophila species. Methods/Principal Findings:...
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In: The Journal of Experimental Biology, 2008, vol. 21, no. 1, p. 2712-2724
Juvenile hormone (JH) and 20-hydroxy-ecdysone (20E) are highly versatile hormones, coordinating development, growth, reproduction and aging in insects. Pulses of 20E provide key signals for initiating developmental and physiological transitions, while JH promotes or inhibits these signals in a stage-specific manner. Previous evidence suggests that JH and 20E might modulate innate immunity,...
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In: Ecology and Evolution, 2017, vol. 7, no. 11, p. 3796–3807
A fundamental question in life‐history evolution is how organisms cope with fluctuating environments, including variation between stressful and benign conditions. For short‐ lived organisms, environments commonly vary between generations. Using a novel experimental design, we exposed wild‐derived Drosophila melanogaster to three different selection regimes: one where generations...
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In: Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2016, vol. 29, no. 5, p. 1059–1072
Chromosomal inversions are thought to play a major role in climatic adaptation. In D. melanogaster, the cosmopolitan inversion In(3R)Payne exhibits latitudinal clines on multiple continents. As many fitness traits show similar clines, it is tempting to hypothesize that In(3R)P underlies observed clinal patterns for some of these traits. In support of this idea, previous work in Australian...
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