Phenotypic plasticity of wingcoloration in fruit flies

Sammanfattning

This study was conducted to test whether the interference color of the fruit fly wingsis developmentally fixed or if this structural color trait can change plasticallydepending on different environmental conditions during the adult stage. Myprediction is that there will not be any difference in coloration on the fruit fly wingsbetween the two treatment vials. The flies were placed in different treatment vialsand then after 4 days they were euthanized, and their wings were then photographedand analyzed in ImageJ software to obtain mean color in three channels for 4 wingpanels, for a total of 12 color traits. The test that analyzed the wing color images was aprincipal component analysis (PCA) to reduce dimensionality, followed by two-wayANOVA. A multivariate ANOVA, without dimension reduction, was also performedusing the full set of color traits measured. The results showed no significance forplasticity in wing coloration in Drosophila melanogaster, for any singly univariatetrait. The PCA test showed that there was most variance in the first componentFAC1_1 with a variance of 59.068 %, and the study found no evidence for a treatmenteffect using the two-way ANOVA. However, the multivariate ANOVA showedsignificance in Pillai’s Trace test (p=0.012) for treatment. The multivariate ANOVAalso showed weak evidence for phenotypic plasticity in panels 1 and 2. Specifically inthe R1, G1, B1 and R2. But also, that Sex had a significant effect on the G3 coloration.The results that this study produced were that there is limited, but possibly some,plasticity in wing coloration in Drosophila melanogaster. Which is why it’s highlysuggested to make a continue studying this subject and when doing so take intoconsideration the strengths and weaknesses associated with this study, and aspreviously mentioned, possibly achieve a stronger and more definitive result.