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Artificial selection reveals heritable variation for developmental instability.

Ashley J R Carter1, David Houle

  • 1Department of Biological Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306, USA. acarter3@csulb.edu

Evolution; International Journal of Organic Evolution
|December 3, 2011
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Developmental instability (DI), measured by fluctuating asymmetry (FA), shows heritable genetic variation in fruit flies. Artificial selection demonstrated that DI is heritable, with implications for evolutionary studies.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Developmental biology
  • Genetics

Background:

  • Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) quantifies developmental instability (DI) in organisms.
  • Evidence for the heritability of FA and DI is limited.
  • Understanding DI heritability is crucial for evolutionary and genetic studies.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the heritability of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) in Drosophila melanogaster using artificial selection.
  • To determine if developmental instability (DI) is an evolutionarily relevant trait.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized artificial selection on an outbred population of Drosophila melanogaster.
  • Measured interlandmark distances within the wing to quantify FA.
  • Estimated heritability of FA and DI.

Main Results:

  • Demonstrated heritable variation in FA of wing interlandmark distances.
  • Heritability estimates for FA were 0%–1%, while DI heritability reached up to 20%.
  • These values are comparable to typical life-history traits.

Conclusions:

  • Developmental instability (DI) possesses evolutionarily relevant genetic variation.
  • Artificial selection effectively reduced FA, suggesting natural selection has not optimized all developmental stability genes.