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Genetic Analysis of Micro-environmental Plasticity in Drosophila melanogaster

Friday, August 22, 2014
Posters (The Westin Bayshore)
Fabio Morgante , Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Daniel A Sorensen , Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark
Peter Sørensen , Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University, Tjele, Denmark
Christian Maltecca , North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Trudy FC Mackay , Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Abstract Text: Quantitative genetic models recognize the potential for genotype by environment interaction, whereby different genotypes have different plastic responses to changes in macro-environmental conditions. Recently, it has been recognized that micro-environmental plasticity (‘residual’ variance) may also be genetically variable. This study utilized the Drosophila Genetic Reference Panel (DGRP) to accurately estimate the genetic variance of micro-environmental plasticity for chill coma recovery time and startle response. Estimates of broad sense heritabilities for both traits are substantial (from 0.51 to 0.77), of the same order as the heritability at the level of the trait mean for startle response and even larger for chill coma recovery. Genome wide association analyses identified molecular variants (from 15 to 31 depending on the sex and the trait) associated with micro-environmental plasticity. These findings indicate the potential for response to artificial selection for micro-environmental plasticity.

Keywords:

Environmental plasticity

Genetic parameters

GWAS

See more of: Posters: Statistical Methods - Linear and Nonlinear Models (Group 1)
See more of: Methods and Tools: Statistical methods - linear and nonlinear models
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