Host-Plant Specificity in the Cactophilic Drosophila mulleri Species Complex

Ruíz, Alfredo; Heed, William B.

doi:10.2307/4775

Cited by 95 publications

(85 citation statements)

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“…Drosophila mojavensis Patterson and Crow, a member of the mulleri complex of the repleta species group, inhabits the arid desert regions of southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico (Figure 1), feeding and breeding in necrotic tissue (rots) of a variety of cactus species, although within any particular geographic area a specific local host cactus is generally utilized (Heed 1978;Heed and Mangan 1986;Ruiz and Heed 1988;Ruiz et al 1990). A great deal has been learned of the ecology, population genetics and reproductive behaviour of the different geographic populations of D. mojavensis over the last six decades, and the species has become an important model for understanding the timing of early events involved in the process of speciation, including the contributions of geographic and reproductive isolation, and changes in host plant use, that can ultimately lead to genetic divergence among populations (Mettler 1963;Zouros 1973;Zouros and D'Entremont 1980;Etges and Heed 1987;Ruiz et al 1990;Markow 1991;Markow and Hocutt 1998;Hocutt 2000;Knowles and Markow 2001;Ross and Markow 2006;Matzkin et al 2006;Reed et al 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic, ecological and morphological differences among populations of the cactophilicDrosophila mojavensisfrom southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico, with descriptions of two new subspecies

Pfeiler

Castrezana

Reed

et al. 2009

Journal of Natural History

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A variety of molecular markers have consistently shown that little gene flow occurs among the geographically isolated populations of the cactophilic Drosophila mojavensis Patterson and Crow of southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico. The molecular studies support previous subspecies designations of D. mojavensis (D. m. mojavensis from the Mojave Desert and D. m. baja from the Baja California peninsula) and, in addition, suggest that two additional subspecies should be recognized (D. m. sonorensis from Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico to southern Arizona and D. m. wrigleyi from Santa Catalina Island, California). Here we review evidence from studies on population genetics, ecology and behaviour that supports the subspecies assignments in D. mojavensis, and provide descriptions of D. m. sonorensis and D. m. wrigleyi. We also provide redescriptions of D. m. mojavensis and D. m. baja. Morphologically, the four subspecies are similar in external appearance, but showed differences in the male genitalia.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic, ecological and morphological differences among populations of the cactophilicDrosophila mojavensisfrom southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico, with descriptions of two new subspecies

Pfeiler

Castrezana

Reed

et al. 2009

Journal of Natural History

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“…In most of mainland Sonora, northern Sinaloa, and Arizona, D. mojavensis uses organ pipe provided other preferred hosts are absent. It uses agria in a very localized patch in coastal Sonora and Stenocereus alamosensis in scattered locations in Sonora and Sinaloa (Ruiz and Heed 1988). Preference for agria over organ pipe rots has been suggested in both field and laboratory choice tests in mainland populations of D. mojavensis (Fellows and Heed 1972;Downing 1985), but no genetic evidence for host preference exists.…”

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GENETICS OF HOST-CACTUS RESPONSE AND LIFE-HISTORY EVOLUTION AMONG ANCESTRAL AND DERIVED POPULATIONS OF CACTOPHILICDROSOPHILA MOJAVENSIS

Etges

1993

Evolution

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Abstract. -The extent of host-specific genetic variation for two life-history traits, egg to adult developmental time and viability, and one morphological trait closely tied to fitness, adult thorax size, was exposed by employing a nested half-sib/full-sib breeding design with Baja and mainland populations of Drosophila mojavensis recently extracted from nature. This study was motivated by the presence of substantial variation in life histories among populations of D. mojavensis that use the fermenting tissues of particular species of columnar cacti for feeding and breeding in the Sonoran Desert. Full-sib progeny from all sire-dam crosses were split into cultures of agria cactus, Stenocereus gummosus, and organ pipe cactus, S. thurberi, to examine patterns of genotype-byenvironment interaction for these fitness components. Baja flies expressed shorter egg-to-adult developmental times, higher viabilities, and smaller body sizes than mainland flies consistent with previous studies. Significant sire and dam components of variance were exposed for developmental time and thorax size. Genotype-by-environment interactions were significant at the level of dams for developmental time and nearly significant for viability (P = 0.09). Narrow-and broad-sense heritabilities were influenced by host cactus, sex, and population. No strong pattern of genetic correlation emerged among fitness components suggesting that host-range expansion has not been accompanied by formation ofcoadapted life histories, yet the ability to estimate genetic correlations and their standard errors was compromised by the unbalanced nature of the data set. Genetic correlations in performance across cacti were slightly positive, evidence for ecological genera1ism among populations explaining the observed pattern of multiple host cactus use within the species range of D. mojavensis.

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“…Each host race, mainland Sonora Desert, Baja California, Catalina Island, and Mojave Desert, utilizes a different species of cactus: organpipe (Stenocereus thurberi), agria (S. gummosus), prickly pear (Opuntia spp. ), and barrel (Ferocactus cylindraceus), respectively (Fellows and Heed 1972;Ruiz and Heed 1988). D. mojavensis has been proposed (Ruiz et al 1990) to have originated in Baja California, utilizing a Stenocereus cactus (possibly agria), and then migrated up the peninsula and colonized Catalina Island and the Mojave Desert, shifting cactus hosts in the process.…”

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The Molecular Basis of Host Adaptation in Cactophilic Drosophila: Molecular Evolution of a GlutathioneS-Transferase Gene (GstD1) inDrosophila mojavensis

Matzkin

2008

Genetics

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Drosophila mojavensis is a cactophilic fly endemic to the northwestern deserts of North America. This species includes four genetically isolated cactus host races each individually specializing on the necrotic tissues of a different cactus species. The necrosis of each cactus species provides the resident D. mojavensis populations with a distinct chemical environment. A previous investigation of the role of transcriptional variation in the adaptation of D. mojavensis to its hosts produced a set of candidate loci that are differentially expressed in response to host shifts, and among them was glutathione S-transferase D1 (GstD1). In both D. melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae, GstD1 has been implicated in the resistance of these species to the insecticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT). The pattern of sequence variation of the GstD1 locus from all four D. mojavensis populations, D. arizonae (sister species), and D. navojoa (outgroup) has been examined. The data suggest that in two populations of D. mojavensis GstD1 has gone through a period of adaptive amino acid evolution. Further analyses indicate that of the seven amino acid fixations that occurred in the D. mojavensis lineage, two of them occur in the active site pocket, potentially having a significant effect on substrate specificity and in the adaptation to alternative cactus hosts.

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Host-Plant Specificity in the Cactophilic Drosophila mulleri Species Complex

Cited by 95 publications

References 12 publications

Genetic, ecological and morphological differences among populations of the cactophilicDrosophila mojavensisfrom southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico, with descriptions of two new subspecies

Genetic, ecological and morphological differences among populations of the cactophilicDrosophila mojavensisfrom southwestern USA and northwestern Mexico, with descriptions of two new subspecies

GENETICS OF HOST-CACTUS RESPONSE AND LIFE-HISTORY EVOLUTION AMONG ANCESTRAL AND DERIVED POPULATIONS OF CACTOPHILICDROSOPHILA MOJAVENSIS

The Molecular Basis of Host Adaptation in Cactophilic Drosophila: Molecular Evolution of a GlutathioneS-Transferase Gene (GstD1) inDrosophila mojavensis

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