Evolution of the male genitalia: morphological variation of the aedeagi in a natural population of Drosophila mediopunctata

To investigate the size and shape of the aedeagus of Drosophila mediopunctata, we used basic statistics and geometric morphometrics. We estimated the level of phenotypic variation, natural and laboratory heritability as well as the phenotypic correlations between aedeagus and wing measures. The wing...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Genetica 2009-01, Vol.135 (1), p.13-23
Main Authors: Andrade, Carlos A. C, Vieira, R. D, Ananina, G, Klaczko, Louis B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aedeagus
Animal Genetics and Genomics
Animals
Biological Evolution
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Body size
Crosses, Genetic
Drosophila - anatomy & histology
Drosophila - genetics
Drosophila mediopunctata
Evolutionary Biology
Female
Genes, Insect
Genetic Variation
Genitalia, Male - anatomy & histology
Human Genetics
Karyotyping
Life Sciences
Male
Microbial Genetics and Genomics
Models, Genetic
Offspring
Phenotype
Phenotypic variations
Plant Genetics and Genomics
Wings, Animal - anatomy & histology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:To investigate the size and shape of the aedeagus of Drosophila mediopunctata, we used basic statistics and geometric morphometrics. We estimated the level of phenotypic variation, natural and laboratory heritability as well as the phenotypic correlations between aedeagus and wing measures. The wing was used as an indicator for both body size and shape. Positive significant correlation was obtained for centroid size of aedeagus and wing for field parents and their offspring reared in the laboratory. Many positive significant phenotypic correlations were found among linear measures of both organs. The phenotypic correlations were few for aedeagus and wing shape. Coefficients of variation of the measures were on average larger in the aedeagus than in the wing for offspring reared in laboratory, but not for flies coming from the field. Significant “natural” heritabilities were found for five linear measures of the aedeagus and only one for the wing. Few significant heritabilities were found for aedeagus and wing shape, mostly ones concerning the uniform components. In an exploratory analysis, we found that inversion DS-PC0 is associated with both uniform and nonuniform components of shape, respectively, in the wing and aedeagus. Our results do not support the lock-and-key hypothesis for the male genitalia evolution, but cannot refute the sexual selection and pleiotropy hypotheses.
ISSN:0016-6707
1573-6857
DOI:10.1007/s10709-008-9247-9