Meeting Abstract
Shifts in daily and seasonal temperatures have a considerable effect on the performance, survival, fitness, and geographic distribution of all taxa. Thus, upper and lower thermal limits are important predictors of an organism’s ability to cope with thermal variability and the effects of climate change. The ability to respond to thermal stress involves heritable genetic components and short-term shifts in gene expression; however the extent to which these two mechanisms overlap is unknown. For this study we used the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP) combined with RNA-seq in a single lab strain (Canton-S) to identify the overlap in genetic and transcriptional mechanisms underpinning critical thermal minima (CTmin) and maxima (CTmax). In the DGRP, there was greater phenotypic variation in CTmin, which ranged from 1.75 to 8.55°C, compared to CTmax, which ranged from 38.75 to 40.65°C. Upcoming analyses will determine the extent of overlap between genes identified via Genome Wide Association mapping (GWAS) using the DGRP and those identified via RNA-seq analyses with Canton-S flies exposed to their thermal limits. Together these results will characterize the relative contribution of genomic variation and short-term shifts in gene expression that underpin the thermal stress response in Drosophila melanogaster.
