Posted on 11/20/2005 9:27:40 AM PST by restornu
Scientists at the University of Arizona may have witnessed the birth of a new species. Biologists Laura Reed and Prof Therese Markow made the discovery by observing breeding patterns of fruit flies that live on rotting cacti in deserts.
The work could help scientists identify the genetic changes that lead one species to evolve into two species.
The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
One becomes two
Whether the two closely related fruit fly populations the scientists studied - Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae - represent one species or two is still debated by biologists.
However, the University of Arizona researchers believe the insects are in the early stages of diverging into separate species.
The emergence of a new species - speciation - occurs when distinct populations of a species stop reproducing with one another.
When the two groups can no longer interbreed, they cease exchanging genes and eventually go their own evolutionary ways becoming separate species. Though speciation is a crucial element of understanding how evolution works, biologists have not been able to discover the factors that initiate the process.
In fruit flies there are several examples of mutant genes that prevent different species from breeding but scientists do not know if they are the cause or just a consequence of speciation.
Sterile males
In the wild, Drosophila mojavensis and Drosophila arizonae rarely, if ever, interbreed - even though their geographical ranges overlap.
In the lab, researchers can coax successful breeding but there are complications.
Drosophila mojavensi s mothers typically produce healthy offspring after mating with Drosophila arizonae males, but when Drosophila arizonae females mate with Drosphila mojavensis males, the resulting males are sterile.
Laura Reed maintains that such limited capacity for interbreeding indicates that the two groups are on the verge of becoming completely separate species.
Another finding that adds support to that idea is that in a strain of Drosophila mojavensis from southern California's Catalina Island, mothers always produce sterile males when mated with Drosophila arizonae males.
Because the hybrid male's sterility depends on the mother's genes, the researchers say the genetic change must be recent.
Reed has also discovered that only about half the females in the Catalina Island population had the gene (or genes) that confer sterility in the hybrid male offspring.
However, when she looked at the Drosophila mojavensi s females from other geographic regions, she found that a small fraction of those populations also exhibited the hybrid male sterility.
The newly begun Drosophila mojavensis genome sequencing project, which will provide a complete roadmap of every gene in the species, will help scientists pin down which genes are involved in speciation.
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
dang flies...bet they come from SOTB!
What? This is news? We all evolved from one, single, solitary ancestor! People, Maple Trees, Bats, Alge, we all have the same ancestor. My biology teacher told me so and said that any questioning of that was bunk and those people were religious lunatics so don't listen to them.
This has been settled, stop debating and disproving it!!!
Owl_Eagle
"You know, I'm going to start thanking
the woman who cleans the restroom in
the building I work in. I'm going to start
thinking of her as a human being"-Hillary Clinton
(Yes, she really said that
Peggy Noonan
The Case Against Hillary Clinton, pg 55)
Thanks for posting the interesting article! I always wondered what studying all those generations of fruit flies were good for!
For a second I thought she was the new species.
Thsi has always been a mystery to me they say flies lay eggs or do they come from Maggots?
Fly larvae - Maggots
http://www.deathonline.net/decomposition/corpse_fauna/flies/maggots.htm
Fly eggs
Fly eggs. Photo: R. Major Flies lay eggs that are usually long and thin in shape, often resembling miniature rice grains. They are pale yellow or white in colour and usually laid in masses, although some species lay single eggs. In many species, females will lay up to 250 eggs in one sitting and can lay up to five clutches during their life.
http://www.deathonline.net/decomposition/corpse_fauna/flies/eggs.htm
Were those fruit fly studies in high school biology?
The question is: when you set out rotten fruit in a seemingly sealed room how do the fruit flies get there?
Do the fruit flies appear because they are attracted to the rotten fruit or do the fruit fly eggs live in rotten fruit and just hatch: spontaneous eruption?
That's a highly likely possibility, of course.
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My guess is some how maggots form from rotten food and some come by fly eggs which it could be attached to the fruits you buy and not be aware of it!
So who will be the first to ignore the definition of "species" and stammer "but they're still fruit flies!"?
And this conflicts with Genesis how?
Odd fly uncovers evolution secret [speciation].
Picky female frogs drive evolution of new species in less than 8,000 years.
Butterfly unlocks evolution secret.
Changing One Gene Launches New Fly Species.
*clearing throat*
"That just shows MICRO-evolution - it doesn't prove anything! You have no proof that this isn't just a genetically pre-existing variation in kind being expressed! You have no evidence this variation wasn't built into the Design! You must be an Atheist and Communist to believe this is actually Evil-ution!"
drat! I forgot to use that one.
And here I thought I was the new species........
That's nothing. There's a certain creationist who stalks me on these speciation threads, and seems to hold me personally responsible for all the problems in her life. She'll probably show up.
I'll bring the pizza, you supply the beer.
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