DDT resistance, epistasis and male fitness in flies

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Abstract

In Drosophila melanogaster, the DDT resistance allele (DDT-R) is beneficial in the presence of DDT. Interestingly, DDT-R also elevates female fitness in the absence of DDT and existed in populations before DDT use. However, DDT-R did not spread regardless of DDT-independent selective advantages in females. We ask whether sexual antagonism could explain why DDT-R did not spread before pesticide use. We tested pre- and post-copulatory male fitness correlates in two genetic backgrounds into which we backcrossed the DDT-R allele. We found costs to DDT-R that depended on the genetic background in which DDT-R was found and documented strong epistasis between genetic background and DDT-R that influenced male size. Although it remains unclear whether DDT-R is generally sexually antagonistic, or whether the fitness costs noted would be sufficient to retard the spread of DDT-R in the absence of DDT, general fitness advantages to DDT-R in the absence of DDT may be unlikely. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2011 European Society For Evolutionary Biology.

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APA

Smith, D. T., Hosken, D. J., Rostant, W. G., Yeo, M., Griffin, R. M., Bretman, A., … Wedell, N. (2011). DDT resistance, epistasis and male fitness in flies. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 24(6), 1351–1362. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1420-9101.2011.02271.x

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