Meeting Abstract

P1.130  Wednesday, Jan. 4  Differential starvation survival of field collected and laboratory wild type fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) MORENO, Pamela*; ARACENA, Jimena; Southwestern Oklahoma State University morenop@student.swosu.edu

Most popular strains of wild type fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) used in genetic and behavioral tests have low genetic variation, due to environmental homogeneity and genetic drift caused by the small culture vials that are used to maintain them. We compared the starvation survival of field-collected flies (GG) to laboratory flies (Oregon R). Field collected females (GGF) survived significantly longer than males (GGM) and also longer than Oregon R flies of both sexes (WF and WM). However, the size of the flies was not significantly different. These results suggest that female flies in the field are under selection to increase fat storage.