High Fitness of Heterokaryotypic Individuals Segregating Naturally Within a Long-Standing Laboratory Population of Drosophila silvestris

Abstract

Natural populations of Drosophila silvestris are polymorphic for inversions in one or more of four of the five major chromosome arms; laboratory stocks tend to retain this heterozygosity. A laboratory stock, U28T2, was started from a single naturally inseminated wild female caught at Kilauea Forest Reserve, Hawaii, in January 1977. Polytene analysis in 1980 showed the presence of three natural inversions in chromosome 4: k  2 is distal, t is central and l  2 is proximal. The inversions are short but only short uncovered euchromatic sections exist at the distal and proximal ends. Periodic examinations through 1986 showed all three inversions to be persistent at moderately high frequencies. In 1984, a series of tests of mating performance of caged, mature males, taken at random as they eclosed from the stock, were followed by cytological testcrosses to females from a homokaryotypic stock. Only three of the eight possible haplotypes, k  2/t/+ (A), +/+/l  2 (a) and +/+/+ (a′) were present. Tests of crossing over show none in males; in females, there is about 1% in each of the two regions between the inversions. Only one such apparent crossover haplotype was found among 1084 examined in samples from this stock. Thus, chromosome arrangements A, a and a′ virtually behave as wholechromosome alleles in both sexes. Of 146 males marked and tested in cages, 61 produced progeny; the others failed to reproduce. Of 58 males and 80 females producing progeny and analyzed cytologically, there were, respectively, 49 and 59 heterokaryotypes. On the basis of frequencies calculated for fertilized eggs, 33.6 males and 46.3 females are expected. The facts suggest that individual males with the Aa karyotype are particularly successful in production of offspring. Adult females show an excess of Aa′ as well as Aa. Such high fitness of heterokaryotypes in the effective breeding adults could be a major factor in the maintenance of stable chromosomal polymorphisms both in laboratory stocks and in nature. Although some of this heterosis is clearly ascribable to differential survival, the facts suggest that there is a substantial opportunity, indeed a likelihood, for a contribution from differential mating among surviving adults.