AI Article Synopsis
- The study examines the variability of seminal receptacle length in Drosophila, revealing significant genetic divergence within the species.
- It utilized quantitative genetic methods on two lab strains of Drosophila melanogaster, finding heritability estimates of 0.176 and 0.270 for organ length changes due to artificial selection.
- Analysis showed that both additive and dominance effects significantly influenced the traits, with indications of correlated evolution between seminal receptacle length and thorax length.
Article Abstract
The length of the female's primary sperm-storage organ, the seminal receptacle, has undergone rapid divergence within the Drosophila genus. Quantitative genetic analysis of seminal receptacle length was carried out on two laboratory strains of Drosophila melanogaster that had undergone artificial selection for both increased and decreased organ length. Realized heritabilities were 0.176 and 0.270 for the two experiments. Parental strains, F1, F1r (reciprocal), F2, backcross, and backcross reciprocal generations were used in a line-cross (generation means) analysis. This analysis revealed that additive, dominance, and additive-by-dominance epistasis contributed significantly to the means. No significant maternal effects were found. Variance analysis indicated that a completely additive model was adequate to explain the variances observed in these lines. Castle-Wright minimal estimates of 5.25 and 1.91, segregating loci responsible for mean differences, were found for the two respective experiments. There were significant positive correlations between additive effects of seminal receptacle length and thorax length in both experiments. The correlated evolution of sperm and seminal receptacle length is discussed.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2540.2001.00903.x | DOI Listing |
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