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Narasimhan A, Kapila R, Meena A, Prasad NG. Consequences of adaptation to larval crowding on sexual and fecundity selection in Drosophila melanogaster. J Evol Biol 2023; 36:730-737. [PMID: 36946997 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.14168] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/07/2021] [Revised: 12/02/2022] [Accepted: 12/08/2022] [Indexed: 03/23/2023]
Abstract
Sexual selection is a major force influencing the evolution of sexually reproducing species. Environmental factors such as larval density can manipulate adult condition and influence the direction and strength of sexual selection. While most studies on the influence of larval crowding on sexual selection are either correlational or single-generation manipulations, it is unclear how evolution under chronic larval crowding affects sexual selection. To answer this, we measured the strength of sexual selection on male and female Drosophila melanogaster that had evolved under chronic larval crowding for over 250 generations in the laboratory, along with their controls which had never experienced crowding, in a common garden high-density environment. We measured selection coefficients on male mating success and sex-specific reproductive success, as separate estimates allowed dissection of sex-specific effects. We show that experimental evolution under chronic larval crowding decreases the strength of sexual and fecundity selection in males but not in females, relative to populations experiencing crowding for the first time. The effect of larval crowding in reducing reproductive success is almost twice in females than in males. Our study highlights the importance of studying how evolution in a novel, stressful environment can shape adult fitness in organisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aaditya Narasimhan
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India
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- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India
| | - Rohit Kapila
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India
| | - Abhishek Meena
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India
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- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India
| | - Nagaraj Guru Prasad
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali, India
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Gascoigne SJL, Uwera Nalukwago DI, Barbosa F. Larval Density, Sex, and Allocation Hierarchy Affect Life History Trait Covariances in a Bean Beetle. Am Nat 2022; 199:291-301. [DOI: 10.1086/717639] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Samuel J. L. Gascoigne
- Department of Biology, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois 60045
- Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, 11a Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3SZ, United Kingdom
| | | | - Flavia Barbosa
- Department of Biology, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois 60045
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Kapila R, Poddar S, Meena N, Prasad NG. Investment in adult reproductive tissues is affected by larval growth conditions but not by evolution under poor larval growth conditions in Drosophila melanogaster. CURRENT RESEARCH IN INSECT SCIENCE 2022; 2:100027. [PMID: 36003263 PMCID: PMC9387493 DOI: 10.1016/j.cris.2021.100027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/26/2021] [Revised: 12/09/2021] [Accepted: 12/10/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Growing at different larval densities affect the investment in reproductive tissues Increased larval density negatively affects the testis and accessory gland size Relative investment in testis is not affected by larval densities Increased larval densities affect relative accessory gland size negatively Adaptation to high larval crowding does not affect investment in reproductive tissues
In many insects, the larval environment is confined to the egg-laying site, which often leads to crowded larval conditions, exposing the developing larvae to poor resource availability and toxic metabolic wastes. Larval crowding imposes two opposing selection pressures. On one hand, due to poor nutritional resources during developmental stages, adults from the crowded larval environment have reduced investment in reproductive tissues. On the other hand, a crowded larval environment acts as a cue for future reproductive competition inducing increased investment in reproductive tissues. Both these selection pressures are likely affected by the level of crowding. The evolutionary consequence of adaptation to larval crowding environment on adult reproductive investment is bound to be a result of the interaction of these two opposing forces. In this study, we used experimentally evolved populations of Drosophila melanogaster adapted to larval crowding to investigate the effect of adaptation to larval crowding on investment in reproductive organs (testes and accessory glands) of males. Our results show that there is a strong effect of larval developmental environment on absolute sizes of testes and accessory glands. However, there was no effect of the developmental environment when testis size was scaled by body size. We also found that flies from crowded cultures had smaller accessory gland sizes relative to body size. Moreover, the sizes of the reproductive organs were not affected by the selection histories of the populations. This study highlights that adaptation to two extremely different developmental environments does not affect the patterns of reproductive investment. We discuss the possibility that differential investment in reproductive tissues could be influenced by the mating dynamics and/or investment in larval survival traits, rather than just the developmental environment of the populations.
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Chen M, Sokolowski MB. How Social Experience and Environment Impacts Behavioural Plasticity in Drosophila. Fly (Austin) 2021; 16:68-84. [PMID: 34852730 DOI: 10.1080/19336934.2021.1989248] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022] Open
Abstract
An organism's behaviour is influenced by its social environment. Experiences such as social isolation or crowding may have profound short or long-term effects on an individual's behaviour. The composition of the social environment also depends on the genetics and previous experiences of the individuals present, leading to additional potential outcomes from each social interaction. In this article, we review selected literature related to the social environment of the model organism Drosophila melanogaster, and how Drosophila respond to variation in their social experiences throughout their lifetimes. We focus on the effects of social environment on behavioural phenotypes such as courtship, aggression, and group dynamics, as well as other phenotypes such as development and physiology. The consequences of phenotypic plasticity due to social environment are discussed with respect to the ecology and evolution of Drosophila. We also relate these studies to laboratory research practices involving Drosophila and other animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Molly Chen
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.,Current Affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1 Canada
| | - Marla B Sokolowski
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.,Child and Brain Development Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), Toronto, Ontario M5G 1Z8, Canada
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Morimoto J. Parental ecological history can differentially modulate parental age effects on offspring physiological traits in Drosophila. Curr Zool 2021; 68:391-399. [PMID: 36090145 PMCID: PMC9450179 DOI: 10.1093/cz/zoab081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2021] [Accepted: 09/24/2021] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Parents adjust their reproductive investment over their lifespan based on their condition, age, and social environment, creating the potential for inter-generational effects to differentially affect offspring physiology. To date, however, little is known about how social environments experienced by parents throughout development and adulthood influence the effect of parental age on the expression of life-history traits in the offspring. Here, I collected data on Drosophila melanogaster offspring traits (i.e., body weight, water content, and lipid reserves) from populations where either mothers, fathers both, or neither parents experienced different social environments during development (larval crowding) and adulthood. Parental treatment modulated parental age effects on offspring lipid reserves but did not influence parental age effects on offspring water content. Importantly, parents in social environments where all individuals were raised in uncrowded larval densities produced daughters and sons lighter than parental treatments which produced the heaviest offspring. The peak in offspring body weight was delayed relative to the peak in parental reproductive success, but more strongly so for daughters from parental treatments where some or all males in the parental social environments were raised in crowded larval densities (irrespective of their social context), suggesting a potential father-to-daughter effect. Overall, the findings of this study reveal that parental ecological history (here, developmental and adult social environments) can modulate the effects of parental age at reproduction on the expression of offspring traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Juliano Morimoto
- School of Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Zoology Building, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen AB24 2TZ, UK
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Kapila R, Kashyap M, Gulati A, Narasimhan A, Poddar S, Mukhopadhaya A, Prasad NG. Evolution of sex-specific heat stress tolerance and larval Hsp70 expression in populations of Drosophila melanogaster adapted to larval crowding. J Evol Biol 2021; 34:1376-1385. [PMID: 34197669 DOI: 10.1111/jeb.13897] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/05/2021] [Revised: 05/31/2021] [Accepted: 06/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
The ability to tolerate temperature stress is an important component of adult fitness. In holometabolous insects like Drosophila melanogaster, adult stress resistance can be affected by growth conditions experienced during the larval stages. Although evolution under crowded larval conditions is known to lead to the correlated evolution of many adult traits, its consequences on adult heat stress tolerance have not been investigated. Therefore, in the present study, we assessed the adult heat stress tolerance in populations of D. melanogaster adapted to a stressful larval crowding environment. We used replicate populations of D. melanogaster, selected for adaptation to larval crowding stress (MCUs), for more than 230 generations, and their respective controls (MBs). Larvae from selected and control populations were grown under crowded and uncrowded conditions, and their adult heat shock resistance at two different temperatures was measured. Further, we compared Hsp70 expression in crowded and uncrowded larvae of both populations and also measured the Hsp70 expression after a mild heat treatment in adults of selected and control populations. Our results showed that adaptation to larval crowding leads to the evolution of Hsp70 gene expression in larval stages and improves adult heat stress tolerance ability in males, but not in females.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rohit Kapila
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Punjab, India
| | - Mayank Kashyap
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Punjab, India
| | - Aakanksha Gulati
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Punjab, India
| | - Aaditya Narasimhan
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Punjab, India
| | - Soumyadip Poddar
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Punjab, India
| | - Arunika Mukhopadhaya
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Punjab, India
| | - Nagaraj Guru Prasad
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Punjab, India
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Arya H, Toltesi R, Eng M, Garg D, Merritt TJS, Rajpurohit S. No water, no mating: Connecting dots from behaviour to pathways. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0252920. [PMID: 34111165 PMCID: PMC8192009 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0252920] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2021] [Accepted: 05/26/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Insects hold considerable ecological and agricultural importance making it vital to understand the factors impacting their reproductive output. Environmental stressors are examples of such factors which have a substantial and significant influence on insect reproductive fitness. Insects are also ectothermic and small in size which makes them even more susceptible to environmental stresses. The present study assesses the consequence of desiccation on the mating latency and copulations duration in tropical Drosophila melanogaster. We tested flies for these reproductive behavioral parameters at varying body water levels and with whole metabolome analysis in order to gain a further understanding of the physiological response to desiccation. Our results showed that the duration of desiccation is positively correlated with mating latency and mating failure, while having no influence on the copulation duration. The metabolomic analysis revealed three biological pathways highly affected by desiccation: starch and sucrose metabolism, galactose metabolism, and phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan biosynthesis. These results are consistent with carbohydrate metabolism providing an energy source in desiccated flies and also suggests that the phenylalanine biosynthesis pathway plays a role in the reproductive fitness of the flies. Desiccation is a common issue with smaller insects, like Drosophila and other tropical insects, and our findings indicate that this lack of ambient water can immediately and drastically affect the insect reproductive behaviour, which becomes more crucial because of unpredictable and dynamic weather conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Homica Arya
- Division of Biological and Life Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
| | - Regan Toltesi
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
| | - Michelle Eng
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
| | - Divita Garg
- Division of Biological and Life Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
| | - Thomas J. S. Merritt
- Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
| | - Subhash Rajpurohit
- Division of Biological and Life Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
- * E-mail:
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Kapila R, Kashyap M, Poddar S, Gangwal S, Prasad NGG. Evolution of pathogen-specific improved survivorship post-infection in populations of Drosophila melanogaster adapted to larval crowding. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0250055. [PMID: 33852596 PMCID: PMC8046209 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0250055] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/03/2021] [Accepted: 03/31/2021] [Indexed: 01/04/2023] Open
Abstract
The environment experienced by individuals during their juvenile stages has an impact on their adult stages. In holometabolous insects like Drosophila melanogaster, most of the resource acquisition for adult stages happens during the larval stages. Larval-crowding is a stressful environment, which exposes the larvae to scarcity of food and accumulation of toxic waste. Since adult traits are contingent upon larval stages, in larval-crowding like conditions, adult traits are prone to get affected. While the effect of resource limited, poor-developmental environment on adult immune response has been widely studied, the effect of adaptation to resource-limited developmental environment has not been studied, therefore in this study we assayed the evolution of ability to survive infection in adult stages as a correlated response to adaptation to larval crowding environments. Using four populations of Drosophila melanogaster adapted to larval crowding for 240 generations and their respective control populations, we show that populations adapted to larval crowding show an improved and evolved post-infection survivorship against a gram-negative bacteria Pseudomonas entomophila. Whereas, against a gram-positive bacteria Enterococcus faecalis, no difference in post-infection survivorship was observed across control and selected populations. In this study, we report the co-related evolution of pathogen-specific increased survivorship post-infection in populations of Drosophila melanogaster as a result of adaptation to larval crowding environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rohit Kapila
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Mohali, India
| | - Mayank Kashyap
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Mohali, India
| | - Soumyadip Poddar
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Mohali, India
| | - Shreya Gangwal
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Mohali, India
| | - N. G. G. Prasad
- Department of Biological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Mohali, Mohali, India
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Different diets can affect attractiveness of Drosophila melanogaster males via changes in wing morphology. Anim Behav 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.11.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
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Morimoto J, Pietras Z. Natural history of model organisms: The secret (group) life of Drosophila melanogaster larvae and why it matters to developmental ecology. Ecol Evol 2020; 10:13593-13601. [PMID: 33391665 PMCID: PMC7771115 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.7003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2020] [Revised: 10/14/2020] [Accepted: 10/16/2020] [Indexed: 11/07/2022] Open
Abstract
Model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster have been key tools for advancing our fundamental and applied knowledge in biological and biomedical sciences. However, model organisms have become intertwined with the idea of controlled and stable laboratory environments, and their natural history has been overlooked.In holometabolous insects, lack of natural history information on larval ecology has precluded major advances in the field of developmental ecology, especially in terms of manipulations of population density early in life (i.e., larval density). This is because of relativistic and to some extent, arbitrary methodologies employed to manipulate larval densities in laboratory studies. As a result, these methodologies render comparisons between species impossible, precluding our understanding of macroevolutionary responses to population densities during development that can be derived from comparative studies.We recently proposed a new conceptual framework to address this issue, and here, we provide the first natural history investigation of Drosophila melanogaster larval density under such framework. First, we characterized the distribution of larval densities in a wild population of D. melanogaster using rotting apples as breeding substrate in a suburban area in Sweden.Next, we compiled the commonly used methodologies for manipulating larval densities in laboratory studies from the literature and found that the majority of laboratory studies identified did not manipulate larval densities below or above the densities observed in nature, suggesting that we have yet to study true life history and physiological responses to low and high population densities during D. melanogaster development.This is, to our knowledge, the first direct natural history account of larval density in nature for this model organism. Our study paves the way for a more integrated view of organismal biology which re-incorporates natural history of model organisms into hypothesis-driven research in developmental ecology.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Zuzanna Pietras
- Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)Linköping UniversityLinköpingSweden
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Integrative developmental ecology: a review of density-dependent effects on life-history traits and host-microbe interactions in non-social holometabolous insects. Evol Ecol 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s10682-020-10073-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
AbstractPopulation density modulates a wide range of eco-evolutionary processes including inter- and intra-specific competition, fitness and population dynamics. In holometabolous insects, the larval stage is particularly susceptible to density-dependent effects because the larva is the resource-acquiring stage. Larval density-dependent effects can modulate the expression of life-history traits not only in the larval and adult stages but also downstream for population dynamics and evolution. Better understanding the scope and generality of density-dependent effects on life-history traits of current and future generations can provide useful knowledge for both theory and experiments in developmental ecology. Here, we review the literature on larval density-dependent effects on fitness of non-social holometabolous insects. First, we provide a functional definition of density to navigate the terminology in the literature. We then classify the biological levels upon which larval density-dependent effects can be observed followed by a review of the literature produced over the past decades across major non-social holometabolous groups. Next, we argue that host-microbe interactions are yet an overlooked biological level susceptible to density-dependent effects and propose a conceptual model to explain how density-dependent effects on host-microbe interactions can modulate density-dependent fitness curves. In summary, this review provides an integrative framework of density-dependent effects across biological levels which can be used to guide future research in the field of ecology and evolution.
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Dasgupta P, Sarkar S, Das AA, Verma T, Nandy B. Intergenerational paternal effect of adult density in Drosophila melanogaster. Ecol Evol 2019; 9:3553-3563. [PMID: 30962910 PMCID: PMC6434557 DOI: 10.1002/ece3.4988] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2018] [Revised: 01/22/2019] [Accepted: 01/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Notwithstanding recent evidences, paternal environment is thought to be a potential but unlikely source of fitness variation that can affect trait evolution. Here we studied intergenerational effects of males' exposure to varying adult density in Drosophila melanogasterlaboratory populations.We held sires at normal (N), medium (M) and high (H) adult densities for 2 days before allowing them to mate with virgin females. This treatment did not introduce selection through differential mortality. Further, we randomly paired males and females and allowed a single round of mating between the sires and the dams. We then collected eggs from the dams and measured the egg size. Finally, we investigated the effect of the paternal treatment on juvenile and adult (male) fitness components.We found a significant treatment effect on juvenile competitive ability where the progeny sired by the H-males had higher competitive ability. Since we did not find the treatment to affect egg size, this effect is unlikely to be mediated through variation in female provisioning.Male fitness components were also found to have a significant treatment effect: M-sons had lower dry weight at eclosion, higher mating latency, and lower competitive mating success.While being the first study to show both adaptive and non-adaptive effect of the paternal density in Drosophila, our results highlight the importance of considering paternal environment as important source of fitness variation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Purbasha Dasgupta
- Indian Institute of Science Education and Research BerhampurBerhampurIndia
| | | | | | - Tanya Verma
- Indian Institute of Science Education and Research BerhampurBerhampurIndia
| | - Bodhisatta Nandy
- Indian Institute of Science Education and Research BerhampurBerhampurIndia
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