Egg-laying decisions can have significant fitness consequences. In female Drosophila melanogaster, egg-laying involves foraging-like behaviour. Natural allelic variation in foraging (for) underlies the rover/sitter foraging behaviour polymorphism found in D. melanogaster. for encodes a cGMP-dependent protein kinase (PKG) where rovers have higher for-PKG transcript levels and PKG activity than sitters. Interestingly, the orthologue of for in nematodes (egl-4) affects both egg-laying and foraging behaviours. When given a choice between low- and high-nutrient patches, rovers preferentially lay more eggs on the low-nutrient patches while sitters and a sitter mutant prefer high-nutrient patches. Using the neuronal driver elav-GAL4, rover-like preferences were rescued in sitter flies. Compared to sitters, rovers have higher fitness on a sub-optimal substrate which may explain the observed egg-laying preferences. By studying the link from genes to behaviour, this study provides insight to the evolutionary basis and maintenance of behaviour.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:OTU.1807/29527 |
| Date | 23 August 2011 |
| Creators | McConnell, Murray |
| Contributors | Fitzpatrick, Mark |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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