Authors: Jong G.d.¹; Imasheva A.²

Source: Genetica, Volume 110, Number 2, 1 February 2000 , pp. 195-207(13)

Publisher: Springer

Abstract:

An increase in genetic variation in body size has often been observed under stress; an increase in dominance variance and interaction variance as well as in additive genetic variance has been reported. The increase in genetic variation must be caused by physiological mechanisms that are specific to adverse environments. A model is proposed to explain the occurrence of an increase in genetic variation in body size in Drosophila at extreme temperatures. The model has parameters specific to the low- and high-temperature regions of the viable range. Additive genetic variation in the boundary temperatures leads to a marked increase in additive genetic variation in development rate and body size at extreme temperatures. Additive genetic variation in the temperature sensitivity in the low- and high-temperature regions adds non-additive genetic variation. Development rate shows patterns in additive genetic variation that differ from the patterns of genetic variation in body size; therefore, the genetic correlation between development rate and body size changes sign repeatedly as a function of temperature. The existence of dominance in the genetic variation in the boundary temperatures or in the low- and high-temperature sensitivities leads to a higher total genetic variance due to higher dominance and interaction variance, for both development rate and body size.

Keywords: biophysics; body size; Drosophila; ectotherm; genetic variance; stress; temperature extreme

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Evolutionary Population Biology, Utrecht University, Padulaan 8, NL 3584 CH Utrecht, The Netherlands (Phone: +31 30 253 2246; Fax: +31 30 254 2219; E-mail: g.dejong@bio.uu.nl) 2: Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, Gubkin Street 3, 117809 Moscow, Russia

Publication date: 2000-02-01

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