Drosophila - A Population Study in Southern Scania
(2018) BIOK01 20172Degree Projects in Biology
- Abstract
- Most studies done on Drosophila are made in labs and focus on genetics, something which has formed a somewhat one-sided field of studies. To counter this bias, this report was based on fieldwork. From a classical ecological aspect, Drosophila populations in southern Scania were investigated in order to put more clinical Drosophila insights in a proper context. According to previous studies, urban and rural factors together with temperature were thought to have an impact on sex ratios and species composition. This was tested for by sampling wild populations in Lund and Beddingestrand. Although no findings of greater importance were brought to light since none of the hypothesizes could be proven statistically true, convincing evidence for... (More)
- Most studies done on Drosophila are made in labs and focus on genetics, something which has formed a somewhat one-sided field of studies. To counter this bias, this report was based on fieldwork. From a classical ecological aspect, Drosophila populations in southern Scania were investigated in order to put more clinical Drosophila insights in a proper context. According to previous studies, urban and rural factors together with temperature were thought to have an impact on sex ratios and species composition. This was tested for by sampling wild populations in Lund and Beddingestrand. Although no findings of greater importance were brought to light since none of the hypothesizes could be proven statistically true, convincing evidence for the summer 2017 being a bad year for Drosophila was found. No relation between temperature, seasonality, sex ratio, or species distribution was found, neither was any exotic species found. (Less)
- Popular Abstract
- Wild fruit flies? They do exist!
Drosophila is a genus of small fruit flies, most famous for Drosophila melanogaster, a model species for genetics and heredity in biology. The findings of many important scientific findings wouldn’t have been possible without it but what many don’t know is that this species exist outside the lab together with many other, creating a Drosophila community.
During summer 2017, students from Lund University carried out an ecological study on fruit flies in the surrounding area in search for an explanation to earlier findings regarding the genus Drosophila. Could temperature have a major effect on species composition and would it be possible to observe differences between an urban and a rural population?... (More) - Wild fruit flies? They do exist!
Drosophila is a genus of small fruit flies, most famous for Drosophila melanogaster, a model species for genetics and heredity in biology. The findings of many important scientific findings wouldn’t have been possible without it but what many don’t know is that this species exist outside the lab together with many other, creating a Drosophila community.
During summer 2017, students from Lund University carried out an ecological study on fruit flies in the surrounding area in search for an explanation to earlier findings regarding the genus Drosophila. Could temperature have a major effect on species composition and would it be possible to observe differences between an urban and a rural population? Data was also collected to check for variation in sex ratios.
Science is hard though…
During the summer, 570 flies in total were collected, which is no too bad. However, these 570 were only distributed between three different species, while one being exaggeratedly abundant, Drosophila obscura. Fly frequencies converted to Shannon Wiener diversities, a way to compare the diversity amongst species between sites, and then tested for. No matter which statistical method was used, or which variable was tested, only weak correlations emerged. A slight trend pointing towards higher diversity with increased maximum and minimum temperature could be seen although it was impossible to separate from the impact locality (urban and rural) could have had.
Worthen & Haney (1999) could observe in a study on American mushroom eating Drosophila that upon reaching temperature higher than 25 °C, females were better at surviving. Whereas they got significant and surely thrilling results, we got none. Changes in sex ratio could be correlated to any factor. Nevertheless, an interesting observation that previous studies can verify was a rather skewed sex ratio in general. Almost 80% of all flies we caught were females.
Since our own research didn’t come out as we wanted, we’ve spent time thinking about what others can do in the future. The extreme numbers of females must be investigated, is it because higher birth rate, lower mortality or are females more attracted to traps? Lastly, we would like to recommend other studies to use temperature together with precipitation data in order to get proper results.
Degree paper for a Bachelor's degree in Biology 15 credits 2017
Department of Biology, Lund University
Supervisor: Jessica Abbott
Department of Biology, Lund University (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8937928
- author
- Jansson, Jonas
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- BIOK01 20172
- year
- 2018
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- language
- English
- id
- 8937928
- date added to LUP
- 2018-03-22 15:09:02
- date last changed
- 2018-03-22 15:09:02
@misc{8937928,
abstract = {{Most studies done on Drosophila are made in labs and focus on genetics, something which has formed a somewhat one-sided field of studies. To counter this bias, this report was based on fieldwork. From a classical ecological aspect, Drosophila populations in southern Scania were investigated in order to put more clinical Drosophila insights in a proper context. According to previous studies, urban and rural factors together with temperature were thought to have an impact on sex ratios and species composition. This was tested for by sampling wild populations in Lund and Beddingestrand. Although no findings of greater importance were brought to light since none of the hypothesizes could be proven statistically true, convincing evidence for the summer 2017 being a bad year for Drosophila was found. No relation between temperature, seasonality, sex ratio, or species distribution was found, neither was any exotic species found.}},
author = {{Jansson, Jonas}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Drosophila - A Population Study in Southern Scania}},
year = {{2018}},
}