Cardoso Gisele Antoniazzi, Mariano-Martins Pedro, Faria Gustavo Amaral, Karunaratne Inoka, Thyssen Patricia Jacqueline, Torres Tatiana Teixeira
Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Biosciences, University of São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.
Laboratory of Integrative Entomology, Department of Animal Biology, Institute of Biology, Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil.
Mol Ecol. 2025 Jun;34(11):e17785. doi: 10.1111/mec.17785. Epub 2025 May 5.
Blowfly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) exhibit diverse feeding strategies, with most species developing on decomposing organic matter. However, parasitism has evolved within the family, and some species convergently gained the ability to explore the tissues of living vertebrate hosts, which imposes critical veterinary, medical, and agricultural issues worldwide. It is yet unknown how this phenotype has evolved and whether it is determined by the same genetic architecture in different species or not. To address these questions, we evaluated key behavioural phenotypes in species with contrasting feeding habits, focusing on female oviposition preferences and larval survival on distinct diets, both critical aspects of their life cycles. These assays allowed us to propose hypotheses of how oviposition and larval behaviours contribute to feeding habits displayed in nature for parasitic and saprophagous species. Additionally, a transcriptome-wide analysis revealed genes and functional pathways potentially linked to parasitic behaviour by comparing gene expression profiles and coding sequence evolution. In the genetic analysis, we identified genes with important functions related to the measured behaviours, revealing that distinct genes may underlie each independent case of parasitism evolution, suggesting a non-parallel evolutionary pathway for this convergent trait.
丽蝇（双翅目：丽蝇科）表现出多样的取食策略，大多数物种以分解的有机物为食。然而，该科内部已经进化出了寄生现象，一些物种趋同地获得了探索活体脊椎动物宿主组织的能力，这在全球范围内带来了关键的兽医、医学和农业问题。目前尚不清楚这种表型是如何进化的，以及它在不同物种中是否由相同的遗传结构决定。为了解决这些问题，我们评估了具有不同取食习性的物种的关键行为表型，重点关注雌蝇的产卵偏好和幼虫在不同食物上的存活率，这两者都是其生命周期的关键方面。这些试验使我们能够提出关于产卵和幼虫行为如何促成寄生性和腐食性物种在自然环境中表现出的取食习性的假设。此外，通过比较基因表达谱和编码序列进化，全转录组分析揭示了可能与寄生行为相关的基因和功能途径。在遗传分析中，我们鉴定出了与所测量行为相关的重要功能基因，这表明不同的基因可能是寄生进化的每个独立案例的基础，这表明这种趋同性状的进化途径是非平行的。
