A search for trade-offs among life history traits in Drosophila melanogaster

Negative genetic correlations among life history traits can come about by antagonistic pleiotropy. One cause of antagonistic pleiotropy is cost allocation trade-offs. Since cost allocation trade-offs are due to underlying physiological constraints they are expected to be common to closely related gr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Evolutionary ecology 1989-01, Vol.3 (1), p.51-63
Main Authors: Scheiner, S M, Caplan, R L, Lyman, R F
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Diptera
Drosophilidae
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Negative genetic correlations among life history traits can come about by antagonistic pleiotropy. One cause of antagonistic pleiotropy is cost allocation trade-offs. Since cost allocation trade-offs are due to underlying physiological constraints they are expected to be common to closely related groups. A second form of antagonistic pleiotropy is specialization of genotypes to different niches. This type of antagonistic pleiotropy is expected to be specific to each population The authors looked for trade-offs in life history traits of longevity and fecundity in Drosophila melanogaster . The authors used a half-sib mating design and raised the offspring at two temperatures, 19 degree C and 25 degree C. Correlations between longevity and fecundity showed some evidence of antagonistic pleiotropy at high temperature with no evidence of any trade-offs at low temperature. Correlations of early and late fecundity traits did show evidence of cost allocation trade-offs at both temperatures. Antagonistic pleiotropy was also found for cross-environmental correlations of fecundity traits.
ISSN:0269-7653
DOI:10.1007/BF02147931