Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-767nl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-11T14:07:01.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

II.—Hidden Divergence in Laboratory Strains of Drosophila pseudo-obscura

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Rowena Lamy
Affiliation:
Institute of Animal Genetics, University of Edinburgh.
Get access

Extract

The Race A/Race B hybrid females of D. pseudo-obscura have a high percentage of fertility, comparable with that of females of pure race. The number and viability of their offspring, however, are largely affected by the genetic constitution of the hybrid female as well as by that of the male to which she is mated in the backcross. Hence the performance of any given hybrid is determined in the first instance by the actual strains of the pure races which are used in making the P1 racial cross. Generally speaking the results are of the same order whenever the same strains are used. The progenies of hybrid females of different genetic constitution may differ in three main aspects: (1) The total number of offspring may be comparable with that usually obtained in a pure race cross; it may be reduced to any extent; in certain matings it is consistently at zero. (2) The sex ratio may be completely normal or male-deficient or female-deficient in any degree; completely uni-sexual progenies are sometimes obtained. (The above observations are mainly in agreement with reports of earlier writers; cf. Lancefield, 1929, Dobzhansky, 1936, Mampell, 1941, Sturtevant, 1937.) (3) “Viability characters,” i.e. those affecting general vigour and physical normality, may be of a high or a low grade; some progenies are comparable in this respect with the pure race, the only exception being that they show a much greater range of variation in body-size of both sexes, and in the testis size of males, abnormalities which are common to all back-cross progenies whatever the genetic constitution of the mother or father. Some progenies show in addition deformities of a peculiar type usually affecting the abdomen and occasionally the legs and wings.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Society of Edinburgh 1944

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References to Literature

Dobzhansky, Th., 1935. “Fecundity in Drosophila pseudo-obscura at different temperatures,” Journ. Exp. Zool., LXXI, 449464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobzhansky, Th., 1936. “Studies on hybrid sterility. II. Localization of sterility factors in Drosophila pseudo-obscura hybrids,” Genetics, XXI, 113135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobzhansky, Th., 1937. Genetics and the origin of species.Google Scholar
Gottschewski, G., 1940. “Eine Analyze bestimmter Drosophila pseudo-obscura Rassen und Artkreuzungen,” Z.I.A.V., LXXVIII, 338398. Abstract in: Biol. Abstr., XV, No. 9, Sect. A, 21131.Google Scholar
Lancefield, D. E., 1929. “A genetic study of crosses of two races or physiological species of Drosophila obscuraZ.I.A.V., LII, 287317.Google Scholar
Mampell, K., 1941. “Female sterility in inter-racial hybrids of Drosophila pseudo-obscura,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Wash., XXVII, 337340.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, H. J., 1939. “Reversibility in evolution considered from the standpoint of genetics,” Biol. Rev., XIV, 261280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pontecorvo, G., 1942. “Viability interactions between chromosomes of Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans,” Journ. Genet. [In press.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pontecorvo, G., 1943. “Hybrid sterility in artificially produced recombinants between Drosophila melanogaster and D. simulans,” Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., LXI, 385397.Google Scholar
Sturtevant, A. H., 1937. “An effect of the Y-chromosome on the sex-ratio of inter-racial hybrids of D. pseudo-obscuraProc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Wash., XXIII, 360362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, Sewall, 1940. “The statistical consequences of mendelian heredity in relation to speciation,” The New Systematics, Ed. Huxley, Julian.Google Scholar