BIO

I am a senior at Florida State University in the Athletic Training major. I will be graduating this semester and plan on taking a gap year working as a Medical Assistant while I apply to Physician Assistant school.

Melanin and Behavior: Exploring Aggressiveness in Drosophila

Abstract

One long standing question in evolutionary biology is whether single genes that control multiple traits (pleiotropy) results in limitations on adaptive evolution. If it does, then our ability to predict adaptation (e.g., in the face of changing environments) is compromised. We are using a much-discussed correlation between body coloration and aggressive behavior as a system to address this question. In Drosophila, this correlation is possibly attributed to dopamine being a precursor to melanin production. Higher melanin production would then result in less free dopamine, possibly resulting in more aggressive behaviors. To test the prediction that darker individuals were more aggressive, we selected for darker and lighter flies (D. simulans) and periodically test for aggressive behavior. Every 5 generations, we tested for aggression and photographed each individual. We used ImageJ to measure the color of the thorax of the fly. We found that the darker flies are more aggressive, suggesting a pleiotropic effect. Our results suggest that dark-selected flies evolved to be more aggressive. The next step in this study is to identify candidate genes underlying the correlation and test for pleiotropic effects using transgenic approaches.

Keywords: Drosophila Simulans