Changing the relative size of the body parts ofDrosophilaby selection

Abstract

1. Mass selection for both high- and low-ratio of wing to thorax length has been carried out on a population ofDrosophila melanogaster. The response to selection was immediate and sustained. When the experiment was stopped after ten generations, the wing area in the two selected lines differed by about 30%. The heritability estimate worked out at 0·56 ± 0·08.2. Thorax length remained comparatively unchanged during selection nor was there any change in wing shape. There was some evidence of assymetry of response since there was a relatively greater change in favour of smaller rather than larger size.3. The tibia length of all pairs of legs showed correlated changes so that the lines with larger or smaller wing sizes had also larger and smaller legs.4. The normal allometric relation between wing and thorax length, associated with variation in body-size, apparently also changed, so that for a given change in thorax length there was a greater or smaller proportional change in wing size in the high- or low-ratio lines.5. The changes in relative wing size are due to changes in cell number.6. It is suggested that the genetic changes due to selection act in the early pupal period when the imaginal discs are undergoing differentiation and proliferation to form imaginal hypoderm and appendages.7. Tests of genetic behaviour failed to show any departure from additivity in crosses which involved the unselected population and the high-ratio line. But highly significant departures existed in the cross to the low-ratio line. Relatively smaller wing size behaves as largely recessive. Stability of the normal wing/thorax ratio involves dominance and probably also epistasis. The genetic properties of the relative size of the appendage are apparently similar to those which characterize body-size as a whole.8. It is suggested that selection provides a valuable tool for studying the constancy or lability of the growth patterns which determine morphology.