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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 7, 2025

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

Parallel gene expression evolution in natural and laboratory evolved populations.

Sheng-Kai Hsu^1,2, Chaimae Belmouaden¹, Viola Nolte¹

¹Institut für Populationsgenetik, Vetmeduni Vienna, Vienna, Austria.

Molecular Ecology

|September 26, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Experimental evolution in Drosophila melanogaster reveals conserved adaptive gene expression changes across different temperature regimes. These findings suggest laboratory evolution can effectively model natural adaptation processes, highlighting specific genes and modules involved in temperature adaptation.

Keywords:

Drosophila melanogaster experimental evolution gene expression temperature adaptation

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Genomics
Animal models

Background:

Ecological adaptation studies often compare natural populations, but covarying environmental factors complicate inference of selective pressures.
Experimental evolution offers controlled conditions to study adaptation but its relevance to natural environments is debated.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the extent to which experimental evolution in Drosophila melanogaster under controlled temperature regimes reflects adaptation in natural populations.
To identify genes and gene modules involved in temperature adaptation in a laboratory setting and compare them with those identified in natural populations.

Main Methods:

Utilized replicated Drosophila melanogaster populations subjected to two distinct temperature regimes (18/28°C and 10/20°C) for over 80 generations.
Employed gene-wise differential expression analysis and co-expression network analysis to examine evolved gene expression profiles.
Compared experimental evolution results with gene expression data from natural Drosophila populations along temperature clines.

Main Results:

Identified 541 genes and three coregulated gene modules with consistent expression changes across both experimental temperature regimes, likely reflecting adaptation to common environmental factors like space constraints or diurnal fluctuations.
Detected 203 genes and seven modules with temperature-specific expression changes.
Found a significant overlap between temperature-adaptive genes/modules from experimental evolution and those inferred from natural populations.

Conclusions:

Well-designed experimental evolution studies, like this one with Drosophila melanogaster, are powerful tools for dissecting evolutionary responses and understanding adaptation mechanisms.
The observed overlap between experimental and natural population findings supports the utility of experimental evolution in modeling real-world adaptation processes.