Open AccessEpistasis and the genetic divergence of photoperiodism between populations of the pitcher-plant mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii.
Author(s) -
Jeffrey J. Hard,
William E. Bradshaw,
Christina Holzapfel
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
genetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.792
H-Index - 246
eISSN - 1943-2631
pISSN - 0016-6731
DOI - 10.1093/genetics/131.2.389
Subject(s) - biology , epistasis , genetic divergence , divergence (linguistics) , population , quantitative trait locus , genetics , adaptation (eye) , evolutionary biology , genetic variation , genetic architecture , trait , genetic diversity , gene , linguistics , philosophy , demography , neuroscience , sociology , computer science , programming language
Parallel crosses between each of two southern (ancestral) and one northern (derived) population of the pitcher-plant mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii, were made to determine the genetic components of population divergence in critical photoperiod, a phenological trait that measures adaptation to seasonality along a climatic gradient. Joint scaling tests were used to analyze means and variances of first- and second-generation hybrids in order to determine whether nonadditive genetic variance, especially epistatic variance, contributed to divergence in critical photoperiod. In both crosses, digenic epistatic effects were highly significant, indicating that genetic divergence cannot have resulted solely from differences in additively acting loci. For one cross that could be tested directly for such effects, higher order epistasis and/or linkage did not contribute to the divergence of critical photoperiod between the constituent populations.