Publication with datasets Rako et al. 2009, Clinal variation in post-winter male fertility retention; an adaptive overwintering strategy in Drosophila melanogaster, Journal of Evolutionary Biology

Keywords
Climate Adaptation, Cline, Male fertility and Overwintering

Summary

ABSTRACT: In insects including Drosophila melanogaster, females can overwinter at the adult stage by adopting a shallow reproductive diapause, but almost nothing is known about male reproductive diapause. In this study, we test for the maintenance of fertility in overwintering males from the eastern Australian D. melanogaster cline. Males from southern temperate populations maintained in field cages in temperate Melbourne had a higher fertility in spring compared with males from tropical locations. Temperate males successfully inseminated more females, and there were also more offspring produced per inseminated female. The resulting linear post-winter fertility clines were unrelated to male body size. In contrast, there was no clinal variation for fertility in nonoverwintering males held in the laboratory. The cline in overwintering male fertility is likely to have evolved as an adaptive response to latitudinal climatic variation over the last 100 years.

Datasets

  • 33 Rako et al. 2009, Post winter male fertility 2006

    This data file contains post winter male fertility data of the 2006 experiment with three Drosophila melanogaster populations collected in 2005. Each male was crossed to 1-5 virgin females and the total number of offspring, number of offspring per female and maximum number of offspring per female was scored for each male (Fig. 2). Note longitudes in data are approximate.

  • 34 Rako et al. 2009, Post winter male fertility 2008

    This data file contains post winter male fertility data of the 2008 experiment with 17 Drosophila melanogaster populations collected in 2008. Each male was crossed to 2-5 virgin females and the total number of offspring was scored for each male (Fig. 4). Note longitudes in data are approximate.

  • 35 Rako et al. 2009, Post winter male size 2006

    This data file contains wing centroid size (mm) of overwintering males from the 2006 experiment with three Drosophila melanogaster populations collected in 2005. The 48 overwintering males with the highest and lowest productivity were measured for size (Fig. 3). Note longitudes in data are approximate.

  • 36 Rako et al. 2009, Male size 2008

    This data file contains thorax length (mm) and wing centroid size (mm) of males from 18 Drosophila melanogaster populations collected in 2008. Size was measured on males from the mass bred populations maintained in the laboratory. Note longitudes in data are approximate.

Publication Citations

  • Rako, L., Poulsen, N. A., Shirriffs, J., and Hoffmann, A. A., 'Clinal variation in post-winter male fertility retention; an adaptive overwintering strategy in Drosophila melanogaster', Journal of Evolutionary Biology, vol. 22, no. 12, 2009, pp. 2438-2444. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01852.x. Details

Digital Resources

Title
Materials and Methods - Rako et al. 2009, Journal of Evolutionary Biology
Type
methods
Date
2009

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01852.x/full