Open AccessQuantitative genetics of seminal receptacle length in Drosophila melanogaster
Author(s) -
Miller Gary T.,
Starmer William T.,
Pitnick Scott
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
heredity
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.441
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1365-2540
pISSN - 0018-067X
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2540.2001.00903.x
Subject(s) - receptacle , biology , backcrossing , drosophila melanogaster , female sperm storage , sperm , epistasis , genetics , reciprocal cross , genetic analysis , evolutionary biology , sperm competition , botany , gene , hybrid
The length of the female’s primary sperm‐storage organ, the seminal receptacle, has undergone rapid divergence within the Drosophila genus. Quantitative genetic analysis of seminal receptacle length was carried out on two laboratory strains of Drosophila melanogaster that had undergone artificial selection for both increased and decreased organ length. Realized heritabilities were 0.176 and 0.270 for the two experiments. Parental strains, F 1 , F 1r (reciprocal), F 2 , backcross, and backcross reciprocal generations were used in a line‐cross (generation means) analysis. This analysis revealed that additive, dominance, and additive‐by‐dominance epistasis contributed significantly to the means. No significant maternal effects were found. Variance analysis indicated that a completely additive model was adequate to explain the variances observed in these lines. Castle–Wright minimal estimates of 5.25 and 1.91, segregating loci responsible for mean differences, were found for the two respective experiments. There were significant positive correlations between additive effects of seminal receptacle length and thorax length in both experiments. The correlated evolution of sperm and seminal receptacle length is discussed.