Patterns of molecular variation. II. associations of electrophoretic mobility and larval substrate within species of the Drosophila mulleri complex.

Electromorphic variation among populations of Drosophila mojavensis, D. arizonensis and D. longicornis was examined for seven genetic loci. The average electrophoretic mobility for a population was used as the metric. D. mojavensis and D. arizonensis use larval substrates in different parts of their geographic ranges, while D. longicornis is more narrowly restricted to different species of the cactus Opuntia in different localities. There is marked electromorphic variation among populations of either D. mojavensis of D. arizonensis, and the bulk of this variation is accounted for by differences in laval substrate. There is somewhat less variation among populations of D. longicornis, and only a moderate portion of this is accounted for by larval substrate differences. There appears to be an association between the taxonomic diversity of the larval substrates and the electromorphic diversity of the Drosophila populations utilizing those substrates. Evidence is reviewed that suggests physiological mechanisms for these possibly adaptive associations.