Diapause is a period of arrested development which is controlled physiologically, preprogrammed environmentally and characterized by metabolic depression that can occur during any stage of insect development. Nevertheless, in the genus Drosophila, diapause is almost always associated with the cessation of ovarian development and reproductive activity in adult females. In this work, we show that, in D. americana (a temperate species of the virilis group), diapause is a genetically determined delay in ovarian development that is triggered by temperature and/or photoperiod. Moreover, we show that in this species diapause incidence increases with latitude, ranging from 13% in the southernmost to 91% in the northernmost range of the distribution. When exposed to diapause inducing conditions, both diapausing and non-diapausing females show a 10% increase in lifespan, that is further increased by 18.6% in diapausing females, although senescence is far from being negligible. ActinD1 expression levels suggest that diapausing females are biologically much younger than their chronological age, and that the fly as a whole, rather than the ovarian development alone, which is phenotypically more evident, is delayed by diapause. Therefore, diapause candidate genes that show expression levels that are compatible with flies younger than their chronological age may not necessarily play a role in reproductive diapause and in adaptation to seasonally varying environmental conditions.
Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal;Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular (IBMC), Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal;Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular (IBMC), Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal;Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal de Pelotas—UFPel, Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil;Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal;Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular (IBMC), Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal;Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal;Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular (IBMC), Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal
Recommended Citation:
Micael Reis,Felipe B. Valer,Cristina P. Vieira,et al. Drosophila americana Diapausing Females Show Features Typical of Young Flies[J]. PLOS ONE,2015-01-01,10(9)