Thermal plasticity of wing size and wing spot size in Drosophila guttifera

Abstract

Thermal plasticity of melanin pigmentation patterns in Drosophila species has been studied as a model to investigate developmental mechanisms of phenotypic plasticity. The developmental process of melanin pigmentation patterns on wings of Drosophila is divided into two parts, prepattern specification during the pupal period and wing vein-dependent transportation of melanin precursors after eclosion. Which part can be affected by thermal changes? To address this question, we used polka-dotted melanin spots on wings of Drosophila guttifera, whose spot areas are specified by wingless morphogen. In this research, we reared D. guttifera at different temperatures to test whether wing spots show thermal plasticity. We found that wing size becomes larger at lower temperature and that different spots have different reaction norms. Furthermore, we changed the rearing temperature in the middle of the pupal period and found that the most sensitive developmental periods for wing size and spot size are different. The results suggest that the size control mechanisms for the thermal plasticity of wing size and spot size are independent. We also found that the most sensitive stage for spot size was part of the pupal period including stages at which wingless is expressed in the polka-dotted pattern. Therefore, it is suggested that temperature change might affect the prepattern specification process and might not affect transportation through wing veins.