Departamento de Ecología Genética y Evolución, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, IEGEBA-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Insect Sci. 2018 Dec;25(6):1108-1118. doi: 10.1111/1744-7917.12484. Epub 2017 Aug 8.
Drosophila buzzatii and D. koepferae are sibling cactophilic species. The former breeds primarily on prickly pears (genus Opuntia) whereas the latter breeds on columnar cacti of the genera Cereus and Trichocereus, although with certain degree of niche overlapping. We examined the interspecific differences in diurnal temporal patterns of adult emergence from puparia and evaluated whether this behavior is affected by rearing in the different cactus hosts available in nature. We detected important host-dependent genetic variation for this trait differentially affecting the emergence schedule of these species. Diurnal pattern of emergence time was directly correlated with developmental time and negatively correlated with adult wing size, suggesting that early emergences are at least indirectly correlated with increased fitness. We discussed our results in terms of their putative effects on fitness and the genetic-metabolic pathways that would be presumably affected by host's nutritional-chemical differences.
果蝇 buzzatii 和 D. koepferae 是近缘的嗜仙人掌物种。前者主要在仙人球属（Opuntia）的仙人掌上繁殖，而后者则在柱状仙人掌属的柱状仙人掌和 Trichocereus 上繁殖，尽管存在一定程度的生态位重叠。我们研究了成虫从蛹中出现的昼夜时间模式的种间差异，并评估了这种行为是否受到在自然界中可用的不同仙人掌宿主中饲养的影响。我们检测到了这种特性的重要的宿主依赖性遗传变异，这种变异会对这些物种的出现时间表产生不同的影响。出现时间的昼夜模式与发育时间直接相关，与成虫翅大小呈负相关，这表明早期出现至少与适应性的提高间接相关。我们根据它们对适应性的潜在影响以及可能受宿主营养-化学差异影响的遗传代谢途径讨论了我们的结果。
