Meeting Abstract
We selected for adult resistance to starvation in replicated populations of Drosophila melanogaster for ~100 generations. Starvation-selected (S) flies contained over twice as much lipid as fed control (F) populations, contributing to their higher starvation resistance. Lipid accumulation occurred during an extended larval feeding period. S flies eclosed 30 hours after F flies. Thus, selection on adult performance significantly affected pre-adult physiology. We also investigated whether increased allocation of resources to somatic energy storage affected reproductive success. In wild-type females, the larval fat cells undergo programmed cell death within 24 hours, and fat body resources are transferred to the rapidly growing ovaries. Despite higher lipid contents at eclosion, ovaries of S females were smaller and grew more slowly than F ovaries. Consistent with these results, S females had 30% lower fecundity and 20% fewer ovarioles. Ovariole number is determined during larval development, again indicating that adult starvation selection has altered larval development. Supported by IOS-1355210 from NSF and R15-GM100395 from NIGMS.
