RARER NEED NOT BE BETTER IF COMMONER IS WORSE: FREQUENCY-DEPENDENT SELECTION FOR DEVELOPMENTAL TIME AT THE ALCOHOL...

Whereas the importance of frequency-dependent selection in life-history traits, behavioral characters and source allocation patterns is widely accepted, its role in governing biochemical and molecular polymorphisms remains poorly understood. Here we demonstrate a case of allozyme frequency-dependent selection. When olive fruit flies (Bactrocera oleae) are reared on an artificial larval medium, an allele at the alcohol dehydrogenase locus that is present in very low frequency in natural populations increases to about one-third in less than five generations. We show here that the time from the hatching of the egg to the eclosion of the adult is affected by the genotype composition of the larval population that grows in the same cup of food. Cultures consisting of one genotype only have the longest developmental time, and two-allele cultures in which the two homozygotes and the heterozygote occur in a 1:1:2 ratio show the shortest developmental time. Cultures with intermediate genotypic compositions show intermediate levels of developmental time. The results can be explained by assuming that the developmental time of a genotype depends on the frequency array of all genotypes in the larval population and is not merely a function of its own frequency. It is even possible that the developmental time of a genotype becomes longer as the genotype becomes rarer, yet the genotype will be favored because the developmental times of the competing genotypes become even longer owing to the associated increase of their frequencies. Given that developmental time is inversely related to fitness, this generates a frequency-dependent selection, with developmental times changing progressively until the population arrives at an equilibrium. One optimum population composition that provides a satisfactory fit to allele frequency changes in our experimental populations is when the two alleles occur in equal frequencies and genotypes are in Hardy-Weinberg proportions. We argue that this type of selection is consistent with the role of alcohol dehydrogenase as a detoxifying enzyme in a medium that undergoes continuous chemical changes during its use by the feeding larvae.