Lack of Minority Advantage in Drosophila melanogaster Mutants

Authors: ŞÜKRAN ÇAKIR, AYKUT KENCE

Abstract: The objective of this study was to test the generality of frequency-dependent fitness in the mating behavior of Drosophila, called the minority effect and to investigate the effect of artificial olfactory cues and marking the flies by wing cillipng on the frequency-dependent mate choice. In the mating experiments using wild type (oregon) and mutant (white-eyed, sepia, ebony) strains of Drosophila melanogaster, the mating success of mutant males did not increase as their frequency decreased. In addition, the olfactory cue hypothesis was not supported by the results of the experiments with artificial scent. The results of this study did not support the contention that rareale advantage is a general phenomenon. Therefore raremale advantage is probably not an important factor maintaining genetic variation in natural populations of Drosophila.

Keywords: Drosophila, minority advantage, artificial scent, wing clipping.

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