Adaptive dynamics of cuticular hydrocarbons in Drosophila.

Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) are hydrophobic compounds deposited on the arthropod cuticle that are of functional significance with respect to stress tolerance, social interactions and mating dynamics. We characterized CHC profiles in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster at five levels: across a latitudinal transect in the eastern United States, as a function of developmental temperature during culture, across seasonal time in replicate years, and as a function of rapid evolution in experimental mesocosms in the field. Furthermore, we also characterized spatial and temporal changes in allele frequencies for SNPs in genes that are associated with the production and chemical profile of CHCs. Our data demonstrate a striking degree of parallelism for clinal and seasonal variation in CHCs in this taxon; CHC profiles also demonstrate significant plasticity in response to rearing temperature, and the observed patterns of plasticity parallel the spatiotemporal patterns observed in nature. We find that these congruent shifts in CHC profiles across time and space are also mirrored by predictable shifts in allele frequencies at SNPs associated with CHC chain length. Finally, we observed rapid and predictable evolution of CHC profiles in experimental mesocosms in the field. Together, these data strongly suggest that CHC profiles respond rapidly and adaptively to environmental parameters that covary with latitude and season, and that this response reflects the process of local adaptation in natural populations of D. melanogaster.

Seasonal variation in life history traits in two Drosophila species.

Seasonal environmental heterogeneity is cyclic, persistent and geographically widespread. In species that reproduce multiple times annually, environmental changes across seasonal time may create different selection regimes that may shape the population ecology and life history adaptation in these species. Here, we investigate how two closely related species of Drosophila in a temperate orchard respond to environmental changes across seasonal time. Natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila simulans were sampled at four timepoints from June through November to assess seasonal change in fundamental aspects of population dynamics as well as life history traits. D. melanogaster exhibit pronounced change across seasonal time: early in the season, the population is inferred to be uniformly young and potentially represents the early generation following overwintering survivorship. D. melanogaster isofemale lines derived from the early population and reared in a common garden are characterized by high tolerance to a variety of stressors as well as a fast rate of development in the laboratory environment that declines across seasonal time. In contrast, wild D. simulans populations were inferred to be consistently heterogeneous in age distribution across seasonal collections; only starvation tolerance changed predictably over seasonal time in a parallel manner as in D. melanogaster. These results suggest fundamental differences in population and evolutionary dynamics between these two taxa associated with seasonal heterogeneity in environmental parameters and associated selection pressures.