The Genetic Basis of Species Differences in Wing Shape

In terms of classic genetics, quantitative genetics, and developmental biology, one of the most thoroughly studied morphological traits is the Drosophila wing. Although quantitative genetic experiments show that Drosophila wing shape is effectively unconstrained evolutionarily, comparative data reveal a remarkable conservation of wing shape relative to other Dipterans. Where wing shape does vary, convergent clinal patterns in wing shape are often present. Consequently, this system offers great power to dissect the proximate and ultimate basis of trait variation. It is therefore surprising that so little is known about the genetic and selective causes of interspecific variation in Drosophila wing shape. As a postdoc with David Stern, I studied the patterns of morphological intraspecific variation in wing shape among Drosophila, and helped to develop a novel approach to isolate genomic regions contributing to shape variation in this system. This work has been taken on my my current postdoc, Dr. Erin Myers; using this approach combined with new genotyping technologies developed by the Stern lab, she aims to describe the genetic archicture (i.e., the number, genomic positions, effects, interactions, and pleiotropy) of wing shape divergence between severl pairs of Drosophila sibling species.