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Desiccation resistance along an aridity gradient in the cactophilic fly Drosophila buzzatii: sex-specific responses to stress

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Abstract

Stress resistance characters are valuable tools for the study of acclimation potential, adaptive strategies and biogeographic patterns in species exposed to environmental variability. Water stress is a challenge to terrestrial arthropods because of their small size and relatively high area: volume ratio. Fruit flies have been investigated to record adaptive morphological and physiological traits, as well as to test their responses to stressful factors. In this study, we investigate the ability to cope with water stress, by examining variation in desiccation resistance in a species that lives mainly in desert lands. Specifically, we explored the genetic and ecological basis of desiccation resistance in populations of Drosophila buzzatii from Northern Argentina. We used a common garden experiment with desiccation treatments on a number of isofemale lines from four populations along an aridity gradient. Our results revealed significant among-population differentiation and substantial amounts of genetic variation for desiccation resistance. We also detected significant genotype-by-environment and genotype-by-sex interactions indicative that desiccation resistance responses of the lines assayed were environment- and sex-specific. In addition, we observed clinal variation in female desiccation resistance along gradients of altitude, temperature and humidity; that desiccation resistance is a sexually dimorphic trait, and that sexual dimorphism increased along the aridity and altitudinal gradients. Based on current evidence, we propose that the observed sex-specific responses may reflect different life history traits, and survival and reproductive strategies in different ecological scenarios.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported with grants awarded by ANPCyT, CONICET and Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina). PLS and EH are members of National Council of Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET-Argentina). N. Horak assisted us with the English version. We also wish to express our appreciation to the editors J A Endler and M Hall, and two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments and suggestions that helped to improve a previous version of the manuscript.

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  1. Paola L. Sassi

    Present address: Grupo de Investigaciones de la Biodiversidad, CONICET, IADIZA, CCT-Mendoza, Av. Ruiz Leal s/n, Parque Gral. San Martín, CC 507 (5500), Mendoza, Argentina

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución & IEGEBA, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Intendente Güiraldes 2160, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Paola L. Sassi

  2. Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución & IEGEBA, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Intendente Güiraldes 2160, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Esteban Hasson

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  1. Paola L. Sassi
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  2. Esteban Hasson
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Correspondence to Paola L. Sassi.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 4 and 5.

Table 4 Results of linear regressions of desiccation resistance on genotype in ten crosses between lines showing extreme phenotypic values
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Table 5 Results of ‘a posteriori’ comparisons in crosses between pairs of lines in which regression analyses yielded significant results (see text for details)
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Sassi, P.L., Hasson, E. Desiccation resistance along an aridity gradient in the cactophilic fly Drosophila buzzatii: sex-specific responses to stress. Evol Ecol 27, 505–519 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-012-9616-9

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