Abstract
The main amount of esterase in the adult olive fruit fly Dacus oleae (Gmel) is controlled by two autosomal independently segregating loci, named A and B. Locus A controls the synthesis of an acetylcholinesterase and locus B of a pseudocholinesterase or lipase (Zouros, Tsakas and Krimbas, 1968). Both loci are highly polymorphic. More than 20 active variants plus a silent one (As) have been found for locus A and more than 15 variants plus a silent one (Bs) for locus B. Flies homozygous for A, and B, are viable in nature. Zouros and Krimbas (1970) found a duplication for locus A in a natural population which had not been treated with organophosphates. This duplication had a frequency of 0.8 X 10. From all kinds of duplications we can only detect the electrophoretically different ones, that is the ones carried by flies which upon electrophoresis show three different allozyme bands. If all active variants produce the same amount of acetylcholinesterase and if there is no dosage compensation for this enzyme, then adult flies can be classified as follows according to their amount of acetylcholinesterase:
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