Markow Therese Ann
Division of Biological Sciences, Laboratorio Nacional para Genomica de la Biodiversidad, La Jolla, United States.
Elife. 2015 Jun 4;4:e06793. doi: 10.7554/eLife.06793.
Flies of the genus Drosophila, and particularly those of the species Drosophila melanogaster, are best known as laboratory organisms. As with all model organisms, they were domesticated for empirical studies, but they also continue to exist as wild populations. Decades of research on these flies in the laboratory have produced astounding and important insights into basic biological processes, but we have only scratched the surface of what they have to offer as research organisms. An outstanding challenge now is to build on this knowledge and explore how natural history has shaped D. melanogaster in order to advance our understanding of biology more generally.
果蝇属的苍蝇，尤其是黑腹果蝇，最为人所知的是作为实验生物。与所有模式生物一样，它们被驯化用于实证研究，但它们也以野生种群的形式继续存在。几十年来在实验室对这些果蝇的研究已经对基本生物过程产生了惊人且重要的见解，但我们对它们作为研究生物所提供的内容只是触及了皮毛。现在一个突出的挑战是在这些知识的基础上进行拓展，探索自然历史如何塑造了黑腹果蝇，以便更全面地推进我们对生物学的理解。
