Adaptation of <em>Drosophila melanogaster</em> to high and low osmolarity promotes evolutionary change in the phenotypic plasticity of the larval anal organs

Dana Sivunova; Ekaterina Yakovleva; Elena Naimark; Sergey Lysenkov; Ksenia Perfilieva; Alexander Markov

doi:10.21638/spbu03.2024.303

Authors

Dana Sivunova Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation https://orcid.org/0009-0003-1534-9440
Ekaterina Yakovleva Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0624-0246
Elena Naimark Borissiak Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Profsoyuznaya, 123, Moscow, 117647, Russian Federation https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0588-811X
Sergey Lysenkov Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5791-7712
Ksenia Perfilieva Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7008-3281
Alexander Markov Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskie Gory, 1, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation; Borissiak Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, ul. Profsoyuznaya, 123, Moscow, 117647, Russian Federation https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7113-7181

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu03.2024.303

Abstract

The anal organs (AO) of Drosophila larvae provide a textbook example of phenotypic developmental plasticity as they expand in low osmolarity conditions and shrink when larvae are reared on a high-salt medium. Waddington (1953) experimentally showed that these plastic changes might undergo “genetic as similation”: the adaptive plastic change in the size of AO under high salinity conditions became hereditary after a few generations of rearing on a high-salt medium. Later attempts to replicate this finding produced ambiguous results. To clarify the question, we analyzed plastic osmolarity-related changes in the size of AO in three D. melanogaster lines adapted to low, intermediate, and high osmolarity during a long-term evolutionary experiment. We failed to replicate the genetic assimilation. However, we find that the reaction norm became wider in the low osmolarity adapted line. Additionally, we studied the fine structure of AO in fly lines using dying, SEM, and microtomography and revealed phenotypic plasticity of nanoscale pits on the surface of AO as well as confirmed the reduction of the epithelial cells of AO in flies adapted to higher osmolarity.

Keywords:

anal papillae, osmotolerance, fly, adaptation, phenotypic plasticity, genetic compensation, genetic assimilation

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